r  EX  LIBKIS  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


JOHN  HEW  NASH  LIBRARY 

<$>  SAN  FRANCISCO  <8> 

PRESENTED  TO  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


ROBERT  GORDON  SPRQUL,  PRESIDENT. 
BY~ 


MR.ANDMRS.MILTON  S.RAY- 
CECILY,  VIRGINIA  AND  ROSALYN  RAY 

AND  THE 

RAY  OIL  BURNER  COMPANY 


NEW  YORK 


NEW  YORK 

A  SERIES  OF  WOOD  ENGRAVINGS  IN  COLOUR 
AND  A  NOTE  ON  COLOUR  PRINTING  BY 

RUDOLPH  RUZICKA 

WITH  PROSE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  THE  CITY  BY 
WALTER  PRICHARD  EATON 


NEW  YORK 
THE  GROLIER  CLUB 

1915 


COPYRIGHT,  1915, 
BY  THE  GROLIER  CLUB  OF  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

A  NOTE  ON  COLOUR  PRINTING  xi 

I    A  NEW  ANSWER  TO  AN  ANCIENT  RIDDLE  3 

II    AMONG  THE  SKYSCRAPERS  15 

III  THE  BRIDGES  27 

IV  THE  OLD  TOWN  39 
V    THE  SQUARES  51 

VI    FIFTH  AVENUE  63 

VII    BROADWAY  75 

VIII    RIVERSIDE  DRIVE  87 

IX    KNOWLEDGE  AND  THE  HOUSE-TOPS  99 

X    THE  END  OF  THE  ISLAND  111 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

I 

DOWNTOWN,  A  VIEW  FROM  UNION  SQUARE  3 

BROAD  STREET  AT  WALL  7 

RROADWAY  FROM  THE  POST-OFFICE  12 

II 

NEW  YORK  FROM  BROOKLYN  15 
MUNICIPAL  OFFICE  BUILDING  IN  CONSTRUCTION          19 

WEST  STREET  24 

III 

EAST  RIVER  BRIDGES  27 

QUEENSBORO'  BRIDGE  31 

HIGH  BRIDGE  36 

IV 

ST.  JOHN'S  CHAPEL  IN  VARICK  STREET  39 

WASHINGTON  SQUARE  43 

THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY,  CHELSEA  48 

V 

FOURTH  AVENUE  AT  UNION  SQUARE  51 

MADISON  SQUARE  55 
QUAKER  MEETING  HOUSE,  STUYVESANT  SQUARE     60 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 
VI 

FIFTH  AVENUE  63 

THE  PLAZA  67 

CENTRAL  PARK  72 

VII 

TIMES  SQUARE  75 

RROADWAY  FROM  HERALD  SQUARE  79 
THE  PASSING  OF  THE  RROWNSTONE  DWELLING            84 

VIII 

RIVERSIDE  DRIVE  PARK  87 

THE  VIADUCT  91 

HARLEM  CLIFFS  96 

IX 

CATHEDRAL  OF  ST.  JOHN  THE  DIVINE  99 

COLUMRIA  UNIVERSITY  103 

FOUNTAIN  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  PARK  108 

X 

"ITALIAN  INFORMAL  GARDENS"  111 

THE  HARLEM  RIVER  115 

FORT  GEORGE  120 


A  NOTE 
ON  COLOUR  PRINTING 


AN  instinctive  love  of  colour  often  found  expression  in 
the  art  of  wood  engraving,  as  it  did  in  all  arts.  The  ear- 
liest examples  of  European  wood  engraving,  dating  from 
the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  were  pictures  of 
sacred  subjects  cut  in  bold  outlines  on  blocks  of  wood 
and  impressed  on  paper  by  means  of  rubbing.  Their 
popular  appeal,  apart  from  the  subject,  rested,  no  doubt, 
in  their  bright  colours,  applied  by  hand  with  the  aid  of 
brushes  and  stencils.  This  method  of  colouring  continued 
in  use  long  after  the  invention  of  printing  in  the  middle 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  although  even  then  efforts 
were  made  to  print  colours  from  wood  blocks,  they  sel- 
dom remained  unassisted  by  the  colourist's  hand,  so  that 
colour  printing  proper  may  be  said  to  begin  with  the 
invention  of  engraving  and  printing  in  a  manner  called 
"chiaroscuro"  or  "clair-obscur." 

This  took  place  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury in  Germany,  where  wood  engraving  in  black  and 
white  and  printing  on  the  hand  press  had  already  reached 
a  great  height  of  perfection.  The  earlier  efforts  in  colour 
printing,  such  as  the  perfectly  impressed  initial  in  Fust 
and  Schoeffer's  Psalter  (1457),  Ratdolt's  Sphaera  Mundi 


xii  A  NOTE  ON 

of  Sacrobosco  (1485),  the  Book  of  St.  Albans  (1486)  and 
the  more  elaborate  Book  of  Hours  of  Jean  du  Pre  (1490) , 
were  confined  to  simple,  flat  colouring  of  outline  blocks 
of  initials,  heraldic  shields,  diagrams  and,  in  the  last  in- 
stance, of  borders.  It  remained  for  the  great  German 
wood  engravers  of  the  sixteenth  century  to  extend  colour 
printing  to  pictures. 

At  first  the  chiaroscuro  was  hardly  more  than  a  repro- 
duction of  a  pen  drawing  made  on  coloured  paper  and 
heightened  with  gold,  silver  or  white.  Indeed,  in  the  first 
example  of  a  print  of  that  kind,  Cranach's  St.  George 
(1507),  the  procedure  is  identically  the  same  as  that 
which  an  artist  might  follow :  a  solid  tone  of  colour,  blue 
in  this  instance,  was  spread  upon  a  sheet  of  paper,  on 
which,  an  outline  engraving  in  black  being  first  im- 
pressed, the  high  lights  were  added  in  gold  from  a  second 
block.  In  another  example  of  the  same  print,  the  high 
lights  are  printed  in  a  kind  of  white  substance,  probably 
intended  to  hold  gold  or  silver.  Possibly  the  difficulty  of 
representing  high  lights  in  this  fashion  led  to  the  next 
step,  which  was  to  establish  definitely  the  method  of 
making  chiaroscuros :  the  printing  over  all  the  paper  of 
a  tint  block  which  was  solid  except  for  the  incisions  indi- 
cating the  high  lights.  This  did  away  with  the  necessity 
of  painting  a  tint  over  the  paper  and  obviated  the  diffi- 
culty of  properly  registering  the  accents  of  light,  giving, 
besides,  the  advantage  of  white  paper  showing  through 
the  incisions.  Jost  de  Negker,  a  native  of  Antwerp,  is 
credited  with  having  invented  this  technically  direct 
method  at  Augsburg  in  1508.  It  is  certain  that  he  carried 
it  to  great  perfection  in  his  engravings  after  Burgkmair. 


COLOUR  PRINTING  xiii 

Besides  Cranach  in  Wittemberg  and  Burgkmair  in  Augs- 
burg, Hans  Baldung  Grien  employed  the  method  in  Stras- 
burg  about  the  year  1510,  as  did  Johann  Waechtlin,  an 
Alsatian  painter  and  engraver  who  lived  in  Strasburg 
between  the  years  1509  and  1519.  In  some  prints  by 
Waechtlin,  who  engraved  his  own  designs,  and  notably 
in  the  Baumgartner  portrait  by  Jost  de  Negker  after 
Burgkmair,  the  black  outline  block  is  abandoned,  the 
darkest  tone  being  a  dark  gray,  used  to  accentuate  the 
shadows  only.  A  tint  of  intermediate  value  is  utilized 
for  most  of  the  detail;  this  tint  and  the  dark  gray  are  im- 
pressed one  after  another  upon  the  lightest  tint  which 
serves  for  the  high  lights.  A  greater  unity  of  effect  was 
thus  obtained  and  the  quality  of  low  relief,  a  character- 
istic of  the  chiaroscuro  print,  further  emphasized. 

In  view  of  the  early  German  work  described,  the  claim 
made  that  Ugo  da  Carpi  was  the  inventor  of  engraving 
and  printing  in  chiaroscuro  has  but  little  ground,  in  spite 
of  Vasari's  assurance  and  the  grant  to  Ugo  in  1516  of 
copyright  privileges  by  the  Venetian  Senate.  The  year 
1516  is  the  date  of  the  first  print  known  to  have  been  exe- 
cuted by  him  in  a  manner  which  is  the  same  as  the  ear- 
lier northern  work.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  Ugo,  himself  a 
painter,  introduced  the  art  into  Italy,  and,  inspired  by 
such  masters  as  Raphael,  Titian  and  Parmegiano,  whose 
drawings  he  reproduced,  brought  the  art  to  its  highest 
development.  This  may  be  observed  in  what  is  perhaps 
the  most  spirited  of  his  chiaroscuros,  the  "Diogenes" 
after  Parmegiano,  for  which  four  blocks  were  used.  The 
colours  of  this  print,  while  kept  in  the  consistently  low 
key  of  gray  greens  employed  in  a  manner  not  unlike  that 


xiv  A  NOTE  ON 

of  the  Baumgartner  portrait,  are  boldly  treated  in  sweep- 
ing lines  and  broad  masses. 

The  substitution  for  the  black  key  block  of  dark  gray 
or  black  spots  used  for  shadows  and  a  greater  variety  of 
colours  employed  in  broad  masses,  are  the  characteristics 
of  the  best  prints  by  Ugo  da  Carpi  and  his  followers,  An- 
tonio da  Trento  and  Giuseppe  Nicolo  Vicentino,  pupils 
of  Parmegiano.  Their  prints  more  nearly  approach 
reproductions  of  oil  paintings;  certain  crudenesses  in 
execution,  as  well  as  the  scale  in  which  they  were  often 
made,  also  suggest  their  use  as  wall  decoration.  Toward 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Andrea  Andreani  of 
Mantua  published  many  chiaroscuros,  some  of  his  own 
workmanship,  often  prints  of  great  size  divided  into  sec- 
tions, others  reprints  from  old  blocks  (into  which  he  in- 
serted his  own  mark)  by  Ugo  da  Carpi,  da  Trento,  Vicen- 
tino and  Alessandro  Ghadini.  Bartolomeo  Coriolano  of 
Bologna,  in  his  engravings  after  Guido  Reni  which  re- 
sembled the  early  German  work  in  their  black  outlines 
and  brown  tints,  carried  the  technique  into  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  adding  nothing  new  to  it,  in 
spite  of  the  huge  dimensions  of  prints  which  won  him 
public  recognition  and  honours. 

In  Germany,  the  race  of  Great  and  Little  Masters 
having  come  to  an  end,  the  art  of  wood  engraving  in  gen- 
eral declined,  the  refinements  of  the  copper  plate  re- 
placing it  in  popular  favour. 

The  first  use  of  the  copper  plate  in  connection  with 
blocks  engraved  for  chiaroscuro  printing  and  also  the 
first  appearance  in  any  form  of  the  chiaroscuro  as  book 
illustration,  is  found  in  Hubert  Goltzius'  "Lives  of  the 


COLOUR  PRINTING  xv 

Roman  Emperors,"  a  book  published  at  Antwerp  in  1557. 
The  illustrations  consist  of  portraits  designed  to  imitate 
medallions,  the  outlines  etched  on  copper  and  printed 
over  two  tones  of  sepia,  these  evidently  printed  from 
blocks  which  were  engraved  in  relief.  Hendrick,  an- 
other member  of  the  Goltzius  family  and  a  noted  copper 
engraver,  executed  a  number  of  chiaroscuro  prints  in 
the  pure  wood-block  method.  The  influence  of  the  suave 
copper-engraved  line  is  in  evidence  in  the  black  key 
blocks  of  his  oval  prints,  designs  of  mythological  sub- 
jects. Of  simpler  character  are  the  few  charming  land- 
scapes Goltzius  engraved  in  black  line  and  two  tones 
of  colour.  Equally  well  known,  though  of  no  greater 
technical  interest,  are  the  chiaroscuros  by  Christopher 
Jegher,  made  after  designs  which  Rubens  himself  is  said 
to  have  drawn  on  the  wood.  Jegher  also  engraved  en- 
tirely on  wood  in  black  outline  and  a  brown  tint  a  "Lives 
of  the  Roman  Emperors"  for  an  edition  published  by 
Moretus  at  Antwerp  in  1645. 

Jan  Lievens,  the  only  one  of  the  school  of  Rembrandt 
to  engrave  on  wood,  designed  and  engraved  a  number  of 
fine  portraits,  making  happy  use  in  some  of  them  of  a 
second  block  printed  in  brown.  The  brown  colour,  em- 
ployed in  some  of  the  earliest  German  chiaroscuros  and 
often  chosen  for  prints  in  one  tone  and  black,  was  also 
used  by  Paul  Moreelse,  the  painter  and  architect,  in  the 
two  graceful  prints  made  by  him  in  1612.  Some  small 
chiaroscuros  of  much  charm  were  produced  in  the 
Netherlands  in  the  seventeenth  century,  probably  by  the 
painter  Abraham  Bloemaert.  Many  of  his  designs  were 
engraved  by  his  son  Frederick,  in  black  outlines  etched 


xvi  A  NOTE  ON 

on  copper  and  coloured  by  tones  of  brown  from  the 
wood,  a  style  that  was  to  find  even  greater  favour  later  in 
the  eighteenth  century. 

Elisha  Kirkall,  born  in  Sheffield  about  1682,  was  the 
first  English  chiaroscurist.  This  versatile  engraver  pro- 
duced twelve  large  colour  prints  between  1722  and  1724. 
Though  inspired  in  subject  by  the  early  Italian  work, 
his  colour  prints  were  really  mezzotints  over  an  etched 
ground,  to  which  tones  of  sepia  were  added  from  blocks 
engraved  in  relief.  The  traditional  method  of  making 
colour  prints  was  temporarily  revived  in  Venice  by  that 
talented  amateur,  Count  Antonio  Maria  Zanetti,  who  en- 
graved and  published  in  1749  a  collection  of  chiaroscuros 
after  drawings  by  Parmegiano  and  other  old  masters. 
More  important  were  the  efforts  made  in  Venice  by  the 
Englishman  J.  B.  Jackson,  the  alleged  pupil  of  Kirkall,  to 
print  in  colours  from  the  wood.  Count  Zanetti  was  prob- 
ably instrumental  in  acquainting  Jackson  with  the  best 
examples  of  the  Italian  work,  when  the  latter  came  to 
Venice  after  his  rather  unsuccessful  attempt  to  practise 
wood  engraving  in  Paris.  His  large  prints  after  the  old 
masters,  produced  in  Venice  (1744)  in  the  usual  manner, 
are  of  smaller  significance  than  his  endeavours,  in  a  series 
of  landscapes,  to  print  pictures  in  their  "proper  colours" 
— in  colours  that  are  independent  of  the  values  of  light 
and  shade.  Such  a  departure  from  the  traditional  use  of 
colour  in  this  branch  of  the  graphic  arts  may  have  been 
due  in  some  measure  to  the  recurrent  experiments  in 
colour  printing  from  plates  engraved  in  intaglio,  of 
which  the  most  remarkable  was  the  application  to  the 
mezzotint  process  of  the  three-colour  principle  by  Le 


COLOUR  PRINTING  xvii 

Blon,  demonstrated  by  him  in  Holland  in  1704  and  later 
exploited  in  England.  Returning  to  England  in  1746, 
Jackson  tried  the  manufacture  of  wall  paper,  utilizing 
his  knowledge  of  colour  printing  to  this  end.  It  was 
mainly  for  the  advertising  of  this  unsuccessful  venture 
that  he  published,  in  1754,  "An  Essay  on  the  Invention  of 
Engraving  and  Printing  in  Chiaro  Oscuro  .  . .  the  Ap- 
plication of  it  to  the  making  Paper  Hangings  of  taste  . . ." 
Of  all  the  English  chiaroscurists,  Jackson  went  farthest 
in  colour  experiments,  claiming  with  some  justice  in  his 
Essay  the  invention  of  "ten  positive  tints,  whereas  Hugo 
di  Carpi  only  knew  four." 

Nicholas  Le  Sueur,  the  last  of  a  long  line  of  wood  en- 
gravers, was  the  chief  exponent  of  the  chiaroscuro  in 
France.  His  work  in  that  method  may  best  be  studied  in 
the  pretentious  "Recueil  d'Estampes,"  reproductions  of 
pictures  in  the  great  French  collections,  the  publication 
of  which  was  begun  in  1729  by  M.  A.  de  Crozat.  In  the 
two  parts  that  were  issued,  besides  the  numerous  copper 
engravings,  there  are  about  thirty  large  prints  in  chiaros- 
curo, some  engraved  by  Le  Sueur  entirely  on  wood,  the 
rest  in  the  popular  combination  of  the  etched  black  out- 
line printed  from  copper  plates  which  Count  de  Caylus 
engraved,  to  which  tones  of  colour  were  added  from 
blocks  furnished  by  Le  Sueur.  Contemporary  with  him 
and  also  the  last  and  most  famous  of  generations  of 
wood  engravers,  Jean  Baptiste  Papillon  had  an  enthusi- 
astic love  for  his  art.  Besides  engraving  a  vast  num- 
ber of  book  decorations  and  illustrations,  many  of  which 
he  designed,  he  also  wrote,  in  the  course  of  some  thirty 
years,  the  "Traite  Historique  et  Pratique  de  la  Gravure 


xviii  A  NOTE  ON 

en  Bois,"  which  was  published  in  1766  in  two  volumes. 
His  enthusiasm  for  the  art  led  him  into  some  fantastic 
statements  in  the  "Traite  Historique,"  but  the  second 
volume,  "Traite  Pratique,"  devoted  to  the  technique  as 
practised  before  the  burin  came  into  general  use,  shows 
Papillon's  great  knowledge  of  his  craft.  The  second  vol- 
ume also  contains  a  valuable  description  of  the  manner 
of  engraving  and  printing  chiaroscuros  and  is  accom- 
panied by  a  suite  of  four  progressive  proofs  and  the 
completed  print,  the  whole  excellently  demonstrating  the 
process. 

The  refinements  of  copper  engraving  completely  dom- 
inated wood  engraving  in  the  eighteenth  and  indirectly 
the  greater  part  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Throughout 
the  eighteenth  century  the  wood  engraver  tried  hard  to 
imitate  the  delicate  effects  of  copper  engraving,  until,  in 
the  nineteenth,  he  nearly  succeeded  in  this  by  accepting 
the  burin,  the  tool  that  had  hitherto  been  employed  on 
metal  alone.  The  Le  Blon  three-colour  method  already 
alluded  to  found  some  imitators,  though  a  more  popular 
medium  for  the  colour  print  was  the  stipple  engraving. 
The  common  mode  of  engraving  being  on  copper,  wood 
was  sometimes  resorted  to  in  the  futile  efforts  made  to 
imitate  the  early  Italian  chiaroscurists — the  original 
method  of  producing  chiaroscuros,  by  means  of  wood 
blocks  alone,  was  practised  only  in  the  spirit  of  a  "lost 
art"  by  a  few  devoted  amateurs  of  engraving. 

The  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  saw  the  birth 
of  lithography,  in  which  experiments  in  colour  were  al- 
most immediately  tried.  But  before  they  achieved  the 
commercial  success  which  in  our  own  time  was  so  com- 


COLOUR  PRINTING  xix 

pletely  eclipsed  by  the  photo-mechanical  processes,  much 
had  been  accomplished  in  colour  printing  from  wood 
engravings.  The  already  mentioned  attempt  made  by 
Jackson  in  the  previous  century,  to  print  "proper  col- 
ours" from  wood,  was  probably  the  first  effort  of  the 
sort  in  Europe.  Excepting  the  work  of  the  little  known 
German  engraver  F.  W.  Gubitz,  which  Bewick  praises  so 
highly  in  his  "Memoir,"  practically  nothing  further  was 
attempted  until  Savage's  important  experiments. 

The  researches  into  the  making  of  coloured  printing 
inks  and  their  improvement  led  William  Savage,  a 
printer  who  settled  in  London  in  1797,  to  the  application 
of  colours  to  book  illustrations  and  decorations,  and  to 
the  reproduction  of  drawings  and  water  colours.  These 
experiments  were  published  by  Savage  in  his  "Practical 
Hints  on  Decorative  Printing"  between  the  years  1818 
and  1823.  Covering  the  traditional  chiaroscuro  method 
by  examples  and  by  the  translation  of  Papillon's  de- 
scription of  the  process,  Savage  also  demonstrated  the 
feasibility  of  reproducing  paintings  in  water  colours, 
choosing  for  his  purpose  some  characteristic  English 
water  colours  executed  in  flat,  definite  washes.  For  each 
one  of  these  washes,  or  tones  of  colour,  a  block  was  en- 
graved and  the  design  built  up  by  successive  impres- 
sions. While  Savage  was  remarkably  successful  in  ren- 
dering the  values  and  effects  of  water  colours  executed 
in  flat  washes,  in  undertaking  the  reproduction  of  paint- 
ings in  full  modeling,  he  could  not  but  fail,  as  in  the  one 
instance,  where  he  used  twenty-nine  different  blocks. 

The  method  often  employed  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury of  copper  plates  used  in  connection  with  blocks 


xx  A  NOTE  ON 

engraved  in  relief  (Kirkall,  Le  Sueur,  etc.),  Jackson's 
endeavours  to  imitate  paintings  in  their  true  colours  and 
Savage's  more  successful  achievements  along  similar 
lines,  were  adroitly  combined  and  popularized  by  George 
Baxter  after  the  year  1834.  Baxter  employed  for  the 
key  plates  sometimes  mezzotint  or  aquatint,  sometimes 
lithography.  The  colour  applied  to  these  key  plates  was 
no  longer  that  of  the  chiaroscuro,  but  of  full  colour  value, 
such  as  Jackson  strove  for  and  Savage  succeeded  in  pro- 
ducing. During  some  twenty-five  years,  Baxter  manu- 
factured and  published  a  great  quantity  of  these  prints, 
to  which,  owing  to  the  many  processes  promiscuously 
employed,  the  name  "Baxter  print"  seems  to  be  the  fit- 
ting one  to  apply.  Among  the  over-illustrated  gift  books 
of  the  fifties  and  sixties,  it  is  refreshing  to  come  upon  the 
work  of  Edmund  Evans,  who  began  his  career  as  colour 
printer  in  1851.  Although  his  early  work  was  in  the  elab- 
orate style  of  colour  printing  then  popular,  he  never 
combined  with  wood  engraving  methods  foreign  to  it. 
In  the  seventies  such  artists  as  Walter  Crane,  Randolph 
Caldecott  and  Kate  Greenaway  found  at  his  Racquet 
Court  Press  faithful  interpretation  for  their  charming 
books  for  children. 

As  the  engraver  became  increasingly  more  able  to  re- 
produce any  effect  of  the  brush,  so  also  he  became  more 
subservient  to  the  artist,  both  losing  regard  for  the  es- 
sential qualities  of  wood  engraving.  The  early  chiar- 
oscuro print  and  the  better  known  Japanese  colour  print 
(which  it  is  beyond  the  scope  of  this  note  to  describe) 
have  a  charm  due  to  the  direct  means  employed  and  to 
a  close  understanding  between  the  artist  and  the  en- 


COLOUR  PRINTING  xxi 

graver.  The  development  of  the  European  method  of 
colour  printing  from  the  wood  was  often  interrupted 
by  the  introduction  of  new  methods  of  engraving;  with 
the  invention  of  the  lithographic  and  the  mechanical 
processes,  the  art  practically  ceased  to  be  practised.  In 
Japan,  on  the  other  hand,  colour  printing  enjoyed  a  con- 
tinual development,  from  its  origin  in  the  early  part  of 
the  eighteenth  to  its  decline  in  the  sixties  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  The  rich  results  of  this  uninterrupted 
development  of  the  Japanese  print  captivated  the  Eu- 
ropean artist  when  he  became  acquainted  with  it  in 
the  eighties  and  nineties.  Already  the  artist  in  Europe, 
whose  relation  to  the  graphic  arts  has  always  been  inti- 
mate, had  begun  to  turn  to  wood  with  new  interest.  The 
discovery  of  the  Japanese  print  and  study  of  the  older 
European  traditions  of  colour  printing  encouraged  him 
to  experiment  more  freely  in  a  medium  which  was  then 
in  the  hands  of  experts  who  competed  in  vain  with  the 
photo-mechanical  processes.  The  artist  himself  now 
turned  to  wood,  engraving  his  own  designs,  experiment- 
ing not  only  in  black  and  white,  but  in  colour  as  well. 
Some  results  of  this  artistic  enterprise  may  be  seen  in 
many  of  the  best  books  published  in  Europe  within  the 
last  fifteen  years.  The  exposition  of  the  "Societe  de  la 
Gravure  sur  Bois  Originate"  in  Paris  in  1912,  to  which 
forty-one  artist-engravers  contributed  over  two  hundred 
and  sixty-six  exhibits,  and  the  more  recent  Exposition  of 
Graphic  Arts  at  Leipsic  have  clearly  demonstrated  that 
there  is  new  vitality  in  the  art,  the  traditions  of  which 
extend  over  five  centuries. 

R.R. 


I 

A  NEW  ANSWER 
TO  AN  ANCIENT  RIDDLE 


I 

A  NEW  ANSWER 
TO  AN  ANCIENT  RIDDLE 

WITH  the  birth  and  rapid  growth  of  the  skyscraper  in 
the  last  two  decades  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  began  the 
transformation  of  many  an  American  city;  and  now,  as 
we  enter  the  second  decade  of  the  Twentieth  Century, 
we  are  confronted  with  the  necessity  for  new  definitions 
of  architectural  effectiveness  and  even  of  beauty.  This 


4  NEW  YORK 

is,  indeed,  an  age  of  redefinition.  We  are  redefining 
Liberty  in  America,  or  attempting  to,  and  Society  and 
Duty.  The  phrase  "Big  Business"  has  leapt  into  the 
language,  because  the  thing  itself  has  shot  up  into  the 
economic  structure,  even  as  our  skyscrapers  have  shot 
up  on  every  street,  and  with  the  problems  "Big  Busi- 
ness" presents  we  are  now  wrestling.  All  these  prob- 
lems, these  demands  for  redefinition,  social,  economic, 
aesthetic,  are  most  insistent,  not  to  say  clamorous,  on 
Manhattan  Island.  Our  greatest  contrasts  of  rich  and 
poor,  our  biggest  business,  our  tallest  skyscrapers,  our 
most  chaotic  jumbles  of  architectural  styles  and  archi- 
tectural levels,  our  most  strident  individualism,  are 
found  in  the  old  city  of  New  York,  the  heart  of  the 
greater  city  which  since  1898  has  included  Brooklyn,  the 
Bronx  and  Staten  Island.  A  rib  of  rock  between  two  riv- 
ers, the  pigmy  Man  has  swarmed  over  and  under  our 
Island;  he  has  bored  through  its  bowels,  and  piled  it 
thick  with  mortared  mountains,  and  from  its  sides  flung 
leaping  spans  of  steel  across  the  sundering  waters. 
Through  the  canons  he  has  made,  Man  hustles  and  bus- 
tles, creating  more  perplexities  than  he  can  solve,  very 
little  concerned  with  the  beauty  or  ugliness  of  it  all,  a 
pragmatical  pigmy,  intent  upon  the  hour  and  the  "cash 
value"  thereof.  Yet  what  he  has  made  smites  mightily 
on  every  sense,  and  in  reflective  mood  one  seeks  to  find 
the  secret  of  its  charm,  for  charm  it  has  to  any  not  blind- 
ed by  convention,  the  convention  of  level  sky  line  and 
architectural  uniformity. 

Most  of  us  who  call  ourselves  New  Yorkers,  and  are 
secretly  proud  to  call  ourselves  such  however  much  we 


A  NEW  ANSWER  5 

may  publicly  revile  our  city,  have  at  one  time  or  another 
approached  Manhattan  in  a  spirit  of  wonder  and  adven- 
ture; each  one  "cometh  from  afar,"  on  the  search  for 
fame  or  fortune  in  this  commercial  metropolis  by  the 
sea.  Some,  babbling  alien  tongues,  come  up  the  Bay  on 
great  ships,  and  their  first  sight  of  New  York  is  the 
strange  spectacle  of  mortared  Himalayas  rising  from  the 
water.  Some  come  from  staid  New  England  villages  or 
rolling  farms  or  the  freedom  of  the  West.  Their  trains 
draw  in  to  the  city  through  the  urban  spawn  of  factories, 
shanties,  tenements,  which  spread  for  miles  over  the 
surrounding  country.  I  think  I  shall  never  forget  the 
morning  I  drew  near  New  York.  Fresh  from  college,  high 
hearted,  hopeful,  I  left  Boston  by  a  midnight  train,  and 
awoke  in  the  Bronx.  I  lay  in  my  berth  and  drew  up  the 
shade.  We  were  passing  along  an  embankment,  through 
a  wilderness  of  tenements.  Close  beside  the  track,  they 
flashed  by  in  never  ceasing  procession,  broken  at  regular 
intervals  by  the  vista  of  a  cross  street  showing  them  in 
endless  perspective  to  the  west,  and  broken  between 
streets  at  regular  intervals  by  the  clothes-wells  behind, 
hung  layer  on  layer  with  garments,  like  a  strange  gar- 
den. It  has  amused  me  since  to  hear  those  garments 
called  "the  short  and  simple  flannels  of  the  poor"  (by 
Oliver  Herford,  of  course);  but  I  found  no  amusement 
in  them  that  morning.  High-hearted  hope  was  suddenly 
dead  within  me.  A  great  homesickness  for  a  green  New 
England  village  filled  my  bosom,  and  a  great  sense  of 
depression.  Such  miles  on  miles  of  ugly  dwellings,  cave 
dwellings  where  people  lived  in  layers!  Such  barren, 
dirty  streets,  with  never  a  touch  of  green  1  Such  a  mighty 


6  NEW  YORK 

swarming  of  humanity!  The  very  mass  of  it  bore  down 
upon  me  like  a  weight.  Who  was  I  amid  these  millions? 
We  rushed  into  the  tunnel,  not  then  equipped  with  elec- 
tric power,  and  the  smell  of  smoke  and  gas  sickened  me. 
Yet  I  came  out  of  the  station  into  the  gracious,  beautiful 
residential  streets  on  Murray  Hill,  and  smelled  the  lilacs 
abloom  on  Park  Avenue.  My  spirits  revived  with  that  fa- 
miliar odour.  I  looked  about  me  anew  at  the  city  I  was 
to  call  my  home,  and  the  wonder  of  it  then  has  never  left 
me,  nor  the  charm. 

The  wonder  is  the  constant  marvel  at  its  size.  The 
charm  is  compounded  of  many  elements,  of  the  size 
again,  of  the  variety,  of  the  ceaseless  play  of  light  and 
shadow,  haze  and  clarity,  of  the  dominant  utility  at 
unexpected  corners  laid  suddenly  low  by  beauty,  of  the 
endless  surprises  to  the  pictorial  sense,  of  the  cosmopoli- 
tanism of  it  all,  the  hurry  and  strut  and  bustle,  the  never 
ending  ground  stream  of  a  variegated  humanity,  flowing 
through  open  square  and  deep-sunk  canon,  at  once  cre- 
ator and  dependent — midgets  who  have  moulded  moun- 
tains and  who  have  then  been  moulded  by  them,  played 
upon  by  the  environment  they  have  created,  till  they  are 
shaped  into  the  New  Yorker  of  today,  striving  yet  self- 
satisfied,  ardent  yet  smug,  clever  yet  lacking  in  sensi- 
tiveness, American  yet  of  every  race  under  heaven. 

For  more  than  a  decade  since  those  lilacs  on  Murray 
Hill  woke  hope  again  in  my  bosom,  I  have  worked  and 
wandered  in  New  York,  I  have  watched  it  in  all  seasons 
and  at  all  hours,  I  have  seen  old  buildings  fall  and  new 
and  greater  ones  arise  as  if  by  magic  almost  in  a  night, 
I  have  fought  my  own  little  battles  in  its  social  life  and 


A  NEW  ANSWER  9 

joyed  in  them,  and  loved  the  little  corner  of  the  town 
where  I  lived  almost  as  one  loves  the  village  of  his  birth. 
In  the  great  chaos  of  our  town  I  have  found  endless 
charm,  and  beauties  recognized  and  conventional  as 
well  as  beauties  new  and  perplexing.  To  write  of  them 
is  a  pleasure,  for  to  write  of  them  is  to  share  them.  The 
city  is,  supposedly,  preeminently  social.  It  is  to  the 
country  we  turn  for  those  aesthetic  satisfactions  which 
come  to  the  spirit  through  the  pictorial  sense.  That  is 
sometimes  a  grave  mistake,  for  to  those  of  us  who  are  of 
necessity  city  pent  it  brings  only  fret  and  longing.  Stone 
walls  do  not  a  prison  make  to  him  who  can  find  in  Madi- 
son Square  at  twilight  a  Japanese  screen  of  Gargantuan 
proportions  or  at  his  feet  see  unexpectedly  a  modern 
skyscraper  looking  at  its  own  reflection  in  a  forest  pool 
— the  Plaza  Hotel  all  agleam  when  evening  comes,  mir- 
rored on  the  lake  in  Central  Park.  Indeed,  we  have  but 
to  look  with  George  Washington  from  the  steps  of  the 
Sub-Treasury  and  see  the  classic  white  columns  of  the 
Stock  Exchange  rising  out  of  a  black  sea  of  humanity 
like  a  Venetian  palace  from  its  canal,  to  find  in  the  busi- 
est mart,  where  the  human  press  is  thickest,  a  stirring 
challenge  to  pictorial  enjoyment.  Perhaps,  after  all,  the 
ultimate  secret  of  New  York's  charm  is  found  in  this 
element  of  surprise;  on  a  scale  that  almost  overpowers, 
the  sudden  revelation  comes,  amid  apparent  ugliness,  of 
the  magnificently  pictorial.  The  contrast  is  always  acci- 
dental, always  unpremeditated.  The  city  grew  like  a 
windsown  garden,  and  nameless  flowers  from  far  away 
startle  amid  the  weeds.  No  well  trained  municipal  gar- 
dener would  plant  a  skyscraper  beside  a  brown  stone 


10  NEW  YORK 

dwelling,  of  course.  Therefore  he  would  never  achieve 
that  tower  against  the  twilight  sky,  pricked  out  with 
golden  squares  of  light!  We  cannot  do  without  our 
towers  in  New  York,  and  our  city  would  be  pictorially 
the  poorer  if  we  could.  May  it  not  be  that  we  have  too 
long  and  too  exclusively  looked  for  the  elements  of 
beauty  in  what  pleases  the  eye  with  symmetry  or  soothes 
it  with  conformity,  and  looked  not  enough  in  what 
rouses  the  eye  to  keener  attention  and  through  the  eye 
reaches  the  centres  of  suggestion,  kindling  the  imagina- 
tion? Certainly  the  value  to  the  human  spirit  of  a  sight 
which  wakes  his  faculties,  which  causes  him  to  wonder, 
to  speculate,  to  see  beyond  the  immediate  object,  to 
think  a  thousand  correlated  thoughts,  is  as  great  as  the 
sight  which  brings  the  familiar  pleasure  of  "beauty,"  not 
as  it  is  defined,  for  no  two  definitions  are  alike,  but 
as  it  is  generally  understood  and  felt.  Keats,  enthusi- 
astically racing  round  the  logical  circle,  said  truth  is 
beauty,  beauty  truth.  But  what  is  truth?  Wherein  does 
the  truth  of  a  Grecian  urn  consist,  or  of  an  ode  upon  it? 
Surely,  the  conquering  charm  of  Keats'  Ode,  at  any  rate, 
lies  in  its  recreation  for  the  reader,  not  of  the  urn  itself, 
but  of  that  "little  town  by  river  or  sea-shore"  in  the 
placid,  crystalline  atmosphere  of  the  Greece  of  long  ago, 
the  Greece  of  glorifying  fable.  So,  when  our  towering 
buildings  pile  up  into  ranges  and  bring  to  us  the  sense 
of  canon-cleft  and  summit,  of  mass  and  depth,  of  Na- 
ture's own  magnificence,  who  shall  say  they  are  not,  for 
all  their  dumb  unconsciousness,  singing  an  ode  in  stone? 
What  matters  it  how  the  result  is  achieved?  The  end  is 
all,  the  effect  upon  the  human  soul.  Why  must  we  be 


A  NEW  ANSWER  H 

always  viewing  buildings  as  little  habitations  laid  out  on 
little  plans  to  be  looked  at  in  conventional  pattern? 
New  York  is  too  large,  too  strange,  for  that.  It  is  the 
arch  architectural  insurgent. 

Why,  indeed,  may  this  same  strangeness  not  be  ad- 
mitted as  a  possible  element  even  of  conventional 
beauty?  We  long  ago  admitted  it  in  literature,  per- 
suaded by  the  Romanticists,  by  Whitman,  by  Ibsen,  by 
all  the  great  insurgent  poets.  Who  now  denies  that  "Peer 
Gynt"  or  "When  Lilacs  Last  in  the  Dooryard  Bloomed" 
is  poetry?  The  critic  of  architecture  may  still  call  one  of 
our  skyscrapers  ugly,  as  many  critics  have,  considered 
apart  from  its  setting  and  compared  to  Le  Petit  Trianon 
or  Brunelleschi's  Dome.  But  to  this  modern  echo  of 
the  Edinburgh  reviewers  we  reply  that  our  skyscraper 
was  never  intended  to  produce  the  same  effect  as  Bru- 
nelleschi's Dome,  nor  to  serve  the  same  purpose;  and, 
furthermore,  it  is  not  in  isolation  that  we  view  it.  It  was 
created  to  lift  story  upon  story  that  space  might  be  econ- 
omized, and  the  effect  sought  was  vertical  impressive- 
ness.  We  view  it  as  one  of  the  great  crags  in  the  walls 
of  a  man-made  canon,  and  there  it  fills  its  place  with 
admirable  strength  and  uprightness.  Certainly  no  such 
cliffs  were  ever  before  reared  by  Man;  they  seem  less  the 
work  of  Man,  indeed,  than  of  Nature,  and  at  least  we 
must  grant  to  this  mass  effect  the  beauty  of  a  natural 
wonder,  if  not  of  architectural  symmetry.  They  are 
strange,  these  towering  buildings;  they  rouse  the  senses 
like  mountains,  composing  into  Babylonic  mass  and  fir- 
ing the  imagination  as  only  sheer  height  and  size  can  do; 
over  them  the  smoke  plumes  play,  and  through  their 


12 


NEW  YORK 


hazy  canons  the  red  rays  of  sunset  shoot;  and  they  are 
beautiful.  Let  us  not  quarrel  longer  with  definitions, 
but  go  among  the  skyscrapers  of  lower  Manhattan  and 
enjoy. 


II 

AMONG  THE  SKYSCRAPERS 


II 

AMONG  THE  SKYSCRAPERS 

IF  YOU  journey  into  the  Berkshire  Hills  and  climb  Tom 
Ball  Mountain,  you  will  look  down  its  steep  western 
slope  into  a  half  wild  intervale,  with  a  few  farm  houses 
here  and  there  like  toys  in  their  green  clearings,  and  the 
farmer,  like  an  ant,  crawling  in  a  pasture.  At  the  base 
of  the  slope,  almost  under  your  feet,  is  an  abandoned 
quarry.  From  this  quarry  came  the  stone  to  build  the 
New  York  City  Hall,  exactly  one  century  ago.  You  do 
not  see  it  from  the  mountain  top;  Nature  has  covered  its 
scar.  But  over  the  Alford  intervale  and  the  nearer  hills 
you  see  along  the  horizon  the  blue  wall  of  the  Catskills, 
dome  after  dome  like  a  procession  of  phantom  drome- 


16  NEW  YORK 

daries.  The  scene,  probably,  was  not  materially  differ- 
ent in  1812,  save  for  a  greater  quantity  of  evergreen  tim- 
ber on  the  hill  slopes,  and  a  bit  more  bustle  in  the  valley, 
where  ox  teams  hauled  the  quarried  stone  away  toward 
the  Hudson  River. 

But  what  a  change  the  century  has  wrought  in  the 
scene  about  the  building  which  this  Berkshire  marble 
built!  The  New  York  City  Hall,  possessing  a  certain 
delicate  elegance  combined  with  firmness  and  dignity 
— a  type  of  that  colonial  architecture  which  was  at  its 
height  in  the  early  days  of  our  republic  and  may  still  be 
seen  on  an  extensive  scale  in  Salem  and  Portsmouth 
and  Newburyport — looked  toward  the  Battery  across  a 
wedge-shaped  green  park,  and  its  northward  face  was 
built  of  sandstone,  since  it  seemed  incredible  that  the 
town  would  pass  by  it  to  view  it  from  the  rear.  Its  tower, 
and  the  spires  of  the  churches  to  the  south,  dominated 
the  scene.  Near  by  was  the  Park  Theatre,  and  the  masts 
of  the  shipping  on  the  two  river  fronts  were  no  doubt 
visible  from  its  cupola.  Now,  no  less  delicately  elegant 
but  dingier,  its  marble  yellowed  by  age  like  the  files  of 
an  ancient  newspaper,  the  City  Hall  sits  like  Truth  at  the 
bottom  of  a  well,  a  well  made  by  the  lofty  walls  of  the 
surrounding  skyscrapers,  its  green  park  long  since 
chopped  in  half,  its  graceful  cupola  dwarfed,  its  view 
restricted  to  the  rear  of  the  Post  Office  and  a  rift  of  sky. 
If  you  climb  to  the  top  of  the  new  Woolworth  Building 
tower  on  the  corner  of  Broadway  and  Park  Place,  al- 
most eight  hundred  feet  above  the  street  level,  you  will 
look  down  upon  this  little  edifice  of  a  century  ago  from 
a  height  as  great  as  the  summit  of  Tom  Ball  Mountain 


AMONG  THE  SKYSCRAPERS  17 

above  the  Alford  quarry.  Burrowing  in  mines,  chiseling 
in  quarries,  forging  in  shops,  the  pigmy  Man  has 
emerged  to  build  a  mountain  himself,  whence  he  may 
view  his  handiwork  of  the  past  reduced  to  a  marble  toy, 
with  Lilliputians  like  black  ants  running  in  and  out  of 
it,  as  small  as  the  Alford  farmer. 

Behind  the  City  Hall,  rearing  up  in  gigantic  mockery, 
yet  with  subtle  flattery  in  its  imitation,  now  stands  the 
new  municipal  office  building.  It  is  as  unlike  the  old 
Hall  as  the  mountain  cliff  is  unlike  the  pretty,  fern  cov- 
ered boulder  at  its  base,  yet  it  consciously  reproduces, 
so  far  as  a  forty  story  skyscraper  can,  the  colonial 
design,  especially  the  cupola  tower,  and  with  its  curving 
wings  seems  to  embrace  the  elder  structure  and  the 
green  park  at  its  feet,  as  some  great  head  wall  of  a 
mountain  cleft  embraces  the  last  oasis  of  verdure  before 
the  leap  to  snow  line.  Confronted  by  this  strange  con- 
trast of  the  centuries,  the  beholder  pauses  in  silence, 
thinking,  it  may  be,  of  the  two  types  of  life  these  two 
structures  represent,  regretting  a  little,  it  is  quite  pos- 
sible, the  lost  charm  of  a  vanished  day,  but  unable,  none 
the  less,  to  resist  the  tremendous  impressiveness  of  that 
huge  head  wall,  the  more  tremendous  for  the  last  oasis 
of  verdure  at  its  feet.  Our  architecture  has  left  the  val- 
ley. There  is  a  different  standard  for  the  peak.  Propor- 
tion, detail,  suavity  are  left  behind.  Sheer  bulk  and 
upward  sweep  now  take  hold  on  our  senses.  The  inter- 
est has  shifted.  Yet  charm  remains,  more  primitive, 
perhaps,  and  wilder — a  curious  paradox  after  a  century 
of  civilization  and  "progress"! 

Colour  remains,  also,  or  is  added  in  greater  abundance, 


18  NEW  YORK 

and  the  lack  of  light  and  shadow  which  we  deplore  in  the 
single  building  of  modern  steel  construction  is  magnifi- 
cently supplied  by  the  mass.  Look  down  Broadway  or 
Nassau  Street,  and  see  how  a  cornice  lays  a  great  oblique 
belt  of  dusky  purple  down  the  canon  wall  across  the 
way,  while  farther  on,  facing  the  opening  of  a  cross 
street,  this  same  wall  leaps  at  you  with  a  dazzle  of  white. 
When  the  sun  rises  behind  lower  Manhattan  the  specta- 
tor on  the  River  or  the  Jersey  shore  sees  the  cross  streets 
as  deep  gulfs  of  molten  gold,  and  each  building,  sharply 
outlined  in  the  new-washed  air,  bears  its  steam  plumes 
like  salmon  streamers  high  aloft,  while  every  divergence 
of  building  material  tells  as  an  individual  note  of  colour. 
The  New  York  atmosphere,  indeed,  is  sharp  and  unpol- 
luted by  soft  coal  smoke  much  of  the  time,  and  from  the 
gray  street  haze  and  the  parti-coloured  pedestrians,  street 
cars,  and  shop  windows,  up  along  towering  walls  of  red 
and  white  and  brown  and  yellow  to  the  gay  flags  and 
the  slit  of  blue  sky,  the  entire  panorama  of  the  Lower 
Town  is  spread  in  a  thousand  tints,  with  another  thou- 
sand yet  of  transforming  shadows.  How  many  of  us, 
none  the  less,  see  it  drab,  a  sort  of  asphalt  tone!  It  is 
surprising,  indeed,  to  find  how  few  New  Yorkers  are 
aware  of  the  fact  that  our  atmosphere  is  peculiarly 
sharp,  bringing  out  sharp  colours.  When  Sorolla,  the 
Spanish  painter,  said  the  New  York  atmosphere  was  that 
of  the  Spanish  coast  in  which  he  made  his  dazzling  snap- 
shots of  sun  and  skies  and  vivid  costumes,  we  listened 
incredulous.  We  are  even  more  incredulous  when  told 
that  our  town  is  rich  in  colour.  Yet  we  have  only  to  look 
upward,  and  the  colour  is  there.  From  the  North  River 


AMONG  THE  SKYSCRAPERS  21 

ferries,  for  instance,  we  may  see  the  green  of  the  Bat- 
tery Park,  the  Indian  red  of  the  last  sentinel  skyscraper, 
the  white  of  the  West  Street  Building  with  its  aspiring 
lines  and  its  flashing,  sea-green  roof,  the  red  of  the 
Singer  Tower,  the  milky  white  of  the  City  Investment 
Building  next  door,  the  gold  of  the  "World"  dome,  the 
dusky  browns  and  reds  of  ferry  slips  and  the  orange 
of  freight  houses  by  the  water  front,  and  over  all  the 
sun-tinted  steam  plumes  and  the  clarion  crimson  of  a 
hundred  flags. 

Sir  Martin  Conway  once  suggested  that  the  skyscraper 
frames  should  be  walled  by  coloured  tiles,  arranged, 
perhaps,  in  formal  patterns,  to  give  the  Lower  Town  a 
Babylonic  magnificence.  But  we  have  all  the  colour  now 
that  is  required  for  beauty,  achieved  in  more  seemly 
fashion.  Necessity  was  the  earthquake  which  upheaved 
these  mortared  ranges.  They  are  frankly  utilitarian  and 
frankly  they  take  their  colour  from  the  stone  or  brick 
that  lay  to  the  builder's  hand.  We  would  not  have  them 
otherwise.  The  skyscraper  that  tries  to  put  on  archi- 
tectural airs  becomes  grotesque;  it  is  as  if  we  met  with 
formal  gardens  upon  the  uncompromising  ledges  of  the 
Matterhorn. 

It  is  for  such  touches  of  grace  and  beauty  as  Nature 
may  apply  that  we  watch  with  endless  delight,  as  we 
watch  the  shadow  anchors  of  the  clouds  trail  over  the 
slopes  of  the  Great  Gulf  on  Mount  Washington.  The 
Lower  Island  from  the  Bay  and  rivers  is  a  perpetual 
revelation.  Here  the  herded  buildings  are  grouped  like 
a  titanic  fist  of  mountains.  On  foggy  days  the  Singer 
Tower  and  its  sister  peaks  go  up  out  of  sight  into  the 


22  NEW  YORK 

vapours.  Again,  on  days  of  heavy  atmosphere  and  lower- 
ing rain,  when  the  smoke  from  tugs  and  steamers  hangs 
like  a  pall  close  to  the  water,  I  have  seen  the  entire  lower 
portions  of  the  buildings  obliterated,  and  only  their 
summits  reared  on  nothing  into  the  gray  air,  a  dream 
city,  unbelievable,  ethereal,  immense.  From  the  Jersey 
bank  before  sunrise  the  buildings  are  meaningless  sil- 
houettes on  a  red  sky,  till  suddenly  the  sun  comes  up, 
their  cornices  take  fire,  the  cross  streets  are  wells  of 
molten  gold,  the  third  dimension  springs  into  view,  and 
we  behold  a  town  of  Titans!  When  the  early  winter 
twilight  comes,  and  the  myriad  window  squares  are  all 
agleam,  the  city  is  again  strangely  converted.  As  the 
towering  structures  merge  into  the  night  and  their  out- 
lines vanish,  upward  rows  of  lights  alone  remain.  Ris- 
ing so  high,  they  converge  in  perspective,  and  from  the 
deck  of  the  ferry  boat  the  lower  city  has  exactly  the 
aspect  of  a  town  of  many  streets  running  up  a  great, 
dome-like  hill,  each  little  house  by  the  roadside  imag- 
ined from  its  square  of  light.  Indeed,  the  illusion  is  so 
powerful  that  you  can  almost  see  these  houses! 

But  most  beautiful  of  all  its  aspects  is  its  Japanese 
effect.  That  our  great  western  metropolis  should  be 
converted  into  a  Japanese  screen  is  a  curious  thought. 
Yet  you  have  only  to  go  down  the  North  River  on  a  ferry 
boat  some  morning  when  the  sun  is  shining  through  a 
slight  sea  haze  to  find  the  screen.  The  river  is  soft  gray- 
green,  with  here  and  there  a  white  cap  like  a  flick  of 
paint.  The  gulls  flash.  The  upper  sky  is  blue.  And 
against  this  sky,  over  the  soft  water,  the  great,  irregular 
wall  of  the  Lower  Town  is  painted  in  two  dimensions 


AMONG  THE  SKYSCRAPERS  23 

only,  a  blue  as  beautiful  as  the  sky,  a  gray  as  soft  as  the 
water.  The  haze  has  obliterated  all  solids,  wiped  out  all 
angles.  The  flag  on  the  Singer  Tower  whips  out  its  one 
tiny  trumpet  blast  of  red.  From  Canal  Street  southward 
the  design  sweeps  up  into  greater  and  greater  bulk  till 
the  penultimate  panel  is  reached.  Then  it  falls  suddenly 
away,  and  on  the  last  section  of  the  screen  are  only  the 
dancing  waters  of  the  Bay  and  the  smoke  trail  of  an 
outgoing  liner,  whispering  to  the  spirit  of  far  adventur- 
ing. This  is  our  Manhattan.  Have  we  no  artists  to  catch 
it  so,  and  put  it  forever  on  a  screen?  Storks  and  cherry 
blossoms  are  lovely,  too.  But  this  is  at  once  lovely  and 
majestic — and  our  own. 

Seen  from  a  distance,  the  human  element  in  the  Lower 
Town  is  slight,  and  the  elder  buildings  on  the  water 
front  are  indistinguishably  merged  into  the  towering 
mass  behind  them.  But  as  your  ship  or  ferry  draws  in 
close,  as  details  emerge,  as  each  structure  takes  on  a 
personal  identity,  you  see  the  human  bustle  on  ferry 
slip  or  pier,  you  catch  the  swarming  procession  of  black 
ants  down  in  the  canons,  and  you  note  the  old  build- 
ings by  the  water  front,  low7  and  comfortable,  wkile  be- 
hind them  leaps  up  suddenly  a  great  cliff  wall,  the 
rampart  of  the  new  city.  On  the  East  River,  where  Joe 
Cowell,  sprightly  comedian,  landed  in  1821,  and  ate  his 
first  meal  of  crackers  and  cheese  in  a  "grocery  shop" 
near  the  foot  of  Wall  Street,  little  water  front  blocks 
remain  as  they  were  long  ago,  built  of  red  brick,  dingy, 
obscure,  forgotten.  One  might  almost  hope  still  to  find 
a  grocery  shop.  Beyond  and  above  them  leap  the 
bridges.  Far  overshadowing  them  tower  the  skyscrap- 


24 


NEW  YORK 


ers.  Like  the  City  Hall,  they  are  the  reminders  of  an 
elder  day.  It  is  never  wise  to  scorn  our  past,  but  here 
in  lower  New  York  it  is  inevitable  that  we  should  look 
down  upon  it.  "The  old  order  changeth,"  indeed.  Now 
we  mimic  mountain  ranges.  But  Nature,  unchanging, 
gilds  them  with  her  morning  lights,  and  in  the  heart  of 
Man  still  plants  the  sense  of  wonder  and  of  beauty,  that 
he  may  find  them  fair. 


Ill 

THE  BRIDGES 


-rf**^s55^^^8£&: 


Ill 
THE  BRIDGES 

IN  THE  little  village  of  North  Reading,  in  the  County  of 
Middlesex,  Massachusetts,  my  grandfather  many  years 
ago  had  a  blacksmith  shop.  When  it  was  proposed  to 
build  the  Salem  and  Lowell  Railroad,  a  one  track  system 
connecting  the  mill  city  with  the  seaport  a  score  of  miles 
distant,  and  passing  through  grandfather's  meadows, 
the  village  wiseheads  used  to  gather  in  his  shop  and  sol- 
emnly debate  whether  the  iron  supply  of  the  country 
would  hold  out  to  lay  the  rails. 

Presumably  there  is  enough  steel  in  the  Queensboro' 
Bridge  alone  to  double  track  the  Salem  and  Lowell. 

Our  great  bridges  are  commonplace  to  us  now.  When 
the  Brooklyn  Bridge  was  opened  in  1883  it  attracted 


28  NEW  YORK 

world-wide  attention.  But  the  opening  of  its  most  recent 
neighbour  to  the  north  a  year  or  two  ago  caused  not  a 
ripple  in  the  city's  life.  As  Carlyle  said,  the  second  sun- 
rise ceases  to  be  a  wonder.  The  Brooklyn  Bridge,  how- 
ever, has  not  ceased  to  deserve  the  most  attention,  for  it 
remains  the  most  beautiful.  This  is  in  part  due  to  the 
exquisite  curve  of  its  span,  that  peculiar  curve  which 
denotes  infinity  to  the  human  imagination;  and  in  part 
due  to  its  suspension  towers,  which  are  graceful,  solid 
pillars  of  masonry  instead  of  the  less  gainly  and  some- 
times trellised  props  of  steel-work  which  carry  the 
newer  structures.  There  is  a  sweep  and  spring  and 
grace  to  the  Brooklyn  span  which  make  it  incomparable 
among  all  the  bridges  of  the  world — gigantic  efficiency 
wedded  to  perfection  of  form.  From  all  points  and 
angles  it  is  beautiful.  As  you  come  up  the  Bay,  it  springs 
from  the  flank  of  the  city  as  if  it  were  alive,  and  sweeps 
high  across  the  busy  river  into  the  town  on  the  other 
side.  As  you  stand  in  old  Franklin  Square,  by  the  house 
of  Harper,  you  see  its  great  stone  arches  striding  far 
above  the  spot  where  George  Washington  lived  as  presi- 
dent. As  you  go  under  it  on  the  deck  of  a  Sound  steamer, 
you  catch  it,  as  it  were,  in  full  flight.  Your  stacks  seem 
about  to  collide  with  it.  A  moment  later  and  you  are 
underneath.  There  are  fifty,  a  hundred  feet  to  spare! 
The  great  thing  leaps  clear  over  you  in  unbroken  flight 
from  shore  to  shore,  a  boulevard  in  the  air.  And  at  night 
how  beautiful  it  is,  its  towers  almost  indistinguishable, 
a  golden  film  against  the  dark,  with  the  glow-worms  of 
the  trains  crawling  perpetually  back  and  forth  spinning 
an  incandescent  web. 


THE  BRIDGES  29 

Beyond  the  pioneer  structure,  within  a  quarter  of  a 
mile,  comes  the  new  Manhattan  Bridge,  no  doubt  more 
capacious,  but  no  doubt  less  beautiful,  for  its  towers  are 
of  steel  instead  of  stone,  and  so  less  massive,  and  its 
curve  a  little  less  alluring,  though  still  lovely.  This  bridge 
comes  straddling  over  the  Lower  East  Side  tenements, 
and  sweeps  down  into  the  Bowery  at  Canal  Street,  close 
to  the  old  Thalia  Theatre  where  Junius  Brutus  Booth 
and  Edwin  Forrest  thundered.  It  has  wiped  out  whole 
blocks  of  buildings  on  the  final  dip,  as  if  reveling  in  its 
power.  A  mile  farther  up  the  East  -River,  springing 
from  the  Island  at  a  point  where  it  pushes  out  an  elbow, 
is  the  Williamsburg  Bridge,  also  a  suspension  structure, 
with  a  longer  span  which  has  rather  an  awkward  curve 
and  therefore  seems  shorter.  But  from  the  Bowery, 
looking  up  a  wide  approach  made  by  razing  a  half  mile 
of  tenements,  the  bridge  becomes  the  great  gateway  of 
a  boulevard,  and  the  city  about  it  seems  planned  on  a 
mean  and  pigmy  scale,  awaiting  the  ampler  imagination 
of  the  future. 

The  Queensboro',  or  Blackwell's  Island  Bridge,  which 
carries  Fifty-ninth  Street  across  the  East  River,  is  not 
a  leaping  span.  It  is  a  cantilever  structure,  a  huge 
maze  of  steel,  which  straddles  off  the  Manhattan  cliffs 
to  Blackwell's  Island  with  a  seven  league  boot  stride, 
and  then  steps  again  to  the  Long  Island  shore,  and  seems 
to  stretch  over  the  lowlands  to  infinity.  The  top  of  this 
bridge  is  pinnacled  like  a  Siamese  palace,  and  it  gains  an 
added  impressiveness  from  the  old  brick  dwellings 
which  sit  on  the  cliff  beside  it,  and  the  long,  low  struc- 
tures beneath  it  on  Blackwell's  Island.  Some  dark,  omi- 


30  NEW  YORK 

nous  day  when  thunder  threatens,  stand  upon  the  Man- 
hattan cliff,  where  Fifty-eighth  Street  ends  in  a  quaint 
court  of  forgotten  houses,  the  relics  of  a  Pomander 
Walk.  The  river  below  you,  narrowed  in  by  Blackwell's 
Island,  is  a  cruel,  steely  gray,  and  the  white  caps  start  up 
vividly.  The  barred  prison  buildings  are  distinct  and 
forbidding  on  their  long  checkerboard  of  green.  A 
steamer  passes  up  stream,  close  in,  the  escape  from  her 
long-drawn  whistle  that  startling  white  of  a  mountain 
birch  against  a  thunder  cloud.  And  straddling  above 
you,  a  gigantic  mass  of  steel,  is  the  bridge,  striding  anew 
from  the  midstream  island  and  vanishing  into  the  oppo- 
site flats  beneath  the  canopy  of  the  coming  storm,  a 
thing  huge  as  the  rage  of  the  lightning,  and  almost  as 
uncompromising. 

We  must  follow  a  long  way  up  the  Island  and  turn 
westward  through  the  Harlem  waterway  before  we 
come  to  the  next  straddling  structure,  for  the  low  draw- 
bridges which  intervene,  carrying  railroads  and  high- 
ways and  trolleys  to  the  mainland,  are  the  common- 
places of  any  city  by  a  river.  But  as  we  enter  the  gorge 
of  the  Harlem  where  the  sharp  cliffs  of  Fort  George  and 
the  northern  nose  of  the  Island  hem  it  in,  we  see  High 
Bridge  suddenly  walking  against  the  sky,  a  centipede  in 
stone.  High  Bridge  is  an  ancient  structure,  as  old  in  form 
as  Imperial  Rome,  but  not,  like  the  aqueducts  of  Rome,  a 
ruin.  Were  some  of  its  arches  shattered,  were  ivy  and 
mosses  clambering  up  its  pillars  and  verdure  clinging  to 
its  level  top,  it  might  be  an  engraving  by  Piranesi,  with 
the  Polo  Grounds  at  One-hundred-and-fifty-fifth  Street 
and  the  howling  baseball  "fans"  for  foreground,  instead 


THE  BRIDGES  33 

of  the  feathery  Campagna  and  a  few  Italian  peasants. 
Yet  there  are  compensations  for  the  feathery  Campagna 
even  here,  compensations  of  smoke  plumes  and  steam 
jets,  compensations  of  curving  stream  and  high  green 
banks  and  rushing  trains  over  rails  that  glitter,  compen- 
sations, especially,  of  ten  thousand  lights.  High  Bridge 
is  a  nocturne  in  black  and  gold  when  viewed  from  the 
bank  just  to  the  north,  in  the  evening,  so  that  it  tells  as  a 
great  silhouette  against  the  dark,  a  silhouette  of  arches 
each  framing  some  constellation  of  clustered  lights 
along  the  river  below,  street  lamps,  ship  lamps,  locomo- 
tive headlights,  all  the  illumination  of  the  water  front, 
with  golden  reflections  rippling  on  the  stream.  The 
headlight  comes  thundering  up  the  rails,  drawing  the 
golden  glow-worm  of  the  train.  The  red  and  green  lights 
of  a  tug  move  up  stream  and  a  feathery  mushroom  of 
smoke  is  dimly  visible.  The  lower  edge  of  the  sky  is 
glowing  with  the  reflection  from  the  city.  Along  the 
level  top  of  the  bridge,  lit  with  small  lamps  beside  the 
walk,  a  few  figures  move  in  silhouette  against  the  night 
sky.  The  great  arches  are  Roman  ghosts,  yet  strangely 
wedded  to  the  present,  doing  their  appointed  work  in  a 
modern  world  of  electricity. 

Indeed,  this  beautiful  Roman  structure  striding  the 
Harlem  into  New  York  was  built  for  exactly  the  same 
purpose  as  the  Roman  aqueducts — which  was,  strange- 
ly enough,  to  carry  water.  It  was  not  built  to  carry 
thousands  of  people,  tons  of  teaming,  trolley  cars  by 
the  hundreds  and  elevated  trains  by  the  score.  How 
ridiculous  it  is,  after  all,  to  reproach  our  bridges  for  not 
resembling  the  Ponte  Vecchio,  as  we  reproach  our  sky- 


34  NEW  YORK 

scrapers  for  not  being  the  Palazzo  Uffizi.  The  first  duty 
of  a  bridge  is  to  get  the  required  traffic  across  the  stream. 
When  your  stream  is  a  mile  wide,  and  your  traffic  meas- 
ured by  thousand-ton  units,  the  architecture  of  your 
bridge  will  vary  accordingly — or  so  much  the  worse  for 
you.  We  delight  to  see  the  multiple  tall  stone  arches  of 
old  High  Bridge  stalking  like  a  Roman  ghost  beyond  the 
Polo  Grounds,  or  stepping  easily  over  the  Empire  State 
Express.  They  are  equal  to  the  task  they  have  to  per- 
form, and  perform  it  with  classic  dignity.  But  unless 
we  scorn  the  task  that  great  semi-circumference  of  steel 
holding  up  a  level  boulevard  a  half  mile  beyond  has  to 
perform,  we  cannot  scorn  this  new  architecture  of  steel, 
this  web  of  brace  and  counter  brace  that  leaps  in  single 
span  from  shore  to  shore  and  has  the  equally  precious 
beauty  of  power  and  efficiency. 

No  bridges  leap  from  the  mortared  flanks  of  our 
Island  on  its  western  side,  perhaps  because  the  Hudson 
is  too  wide,  perhaps  because  the  traffic  does  not  demand 
it,  perhaps  because  the  recent  subaqueous  tunnels  have 
made  further  bridges  unnecessary.  The  "tubes"  are  not 
pictorial,  but  they  put  the  traffic  out  of  the  streets  and 
handle  it  speedily  and  on  schedule,  great  express  trains 
rolling  away  for  Chicago  and  New  Orleans  beneath  our 
houses  and  the  Hudson;  and  they  leave  unobstructed  the 
panorama  of  the  river,  southward  holding  tugs  and 
lighters  and  ferry  boats  and  liners  on  its  ample  flood  as 
it  drops  down  past  the  steel  Sierras  to  the  sea,  northward 
washing  the  still  wooded  end  of  Manhattan  Island  and 
vanishing,  a  great  blue  pathway,  into  the  haze,  with 
purple  nose  after  purple  nose  of  the  Palisades  pushing 


THE  BRIDGES  35 

boldly  into  it,  till  they,  too,  have  melted  into  distance. 
There  is  more  sense  of  the  sea  on  this  side  of  Manhat- 
tan, and  more  realization  that  we  dwell  on  an  island. 
The  busy  ferry  boats,  scooting  hither  and  thither  like 
water  bugs  on  a  pool,  and  bringing  each  its  hundreds  of 
little  black  ant  people,  give  us  this  island  sense;  and  it 
is  on  the  western  side,  particularly,  that  we  realize  New 
York  as  an  ocean  port,  that  we  see  men  going  down  to 
the  sea  in  ships. 

In  Marblehead  or  Gloucester  you  are  aware  of  the  sea 
on  every  street.  You  catch  the  glint  of  water  down 
every  vista,  you  smell  it,  the  stores  proclaim  it  and 
the  passers-by.  But  on  Wall  Street  or  Fifth  Avenue  or 
Broadway  the  nautical  atmosphere  is  not  apparent — 
and  that  is  as  much  of  our  city  as  many  of  us  often 
know!  But  follow  down  the  North  River- front  from 
Forty-second  Street  to  the  Battery,  and  you  will  catch 
the  seaport  flavour.  You  will  behold  such  heaps  and  bales 
of  cargo  as  you  never  dreamed,  hauled  by  a  wilderness 
of  drays,  and  great  docks  walled  like  the  imperial  city 
of  Pekin,  and  the  towering  bows  of  liners  nosing  up  to 
the  very  street,  and  the  four  great  funnels  of  the  Maure- 
tania  like  monuments  above  the  roofs. 

Be  it  bridges  or  shipping  that  connect  our  Island  with 
the  neighbouring  mainland  or  with  distant  continents, 
colossal  size  and  a  new  efficiency  mark  them — the  effi- 
ciency of  steel.  Steel  made  the  Woolworth  Tower  and 
the  Queensboro'  bridge  and  the  tubes  beneath  the  riv- 
ers and  the  Mauretania.  Each  one  complements  and 
completes  the  other,  and  their  beauty  must  be  judged  by 
their  fitness  and  efficiency.  The  first  steamboat,  the 


36 


NEW  YORK 


first  locomotive,  was  ugly,  because  it  was  not  efficient. 
Today  the  giant  liners  are  superb,  seeming  almost  con- 
scious themselves  of  their  conquering  lines;  and  the 
great  moguls  that  haul  our  fliers  pant  like  beautiful  live 
things  at  a  water  tank.  They  have  found  their  type  at 
last,  and  are  supremely  admirable.  So  the  bridges  which 
handle  with  the  greatest  ease  the  greatest  traffic,  which 
fling  the  longest  spans  from  the  flanks  of  the  tallest  city, 
will  ultimately  be  judged  by  their  efficiency.  They  have 
risen  to  meet  a  new  condition,  on  a  new  continent,  born 
of  the  dreams  of  a  new  nation.  Why  should  they  not 
possess  a  new  beauty?  To  the  eye  which  sees  New  York 
steadily  and  sees  it  whole,  they  do. 


IV 
THE  OLD  TOWN 


IV 
THE  OLD  TOWN 

DURING  the  opening  years  of  the  Twentieth  Century 
I  used  to  talk  with  an  old  gentleman  who  loved  to  muse 
on  the  days  that  are  no  more,  the  days  when  his  family 
had  a  country  place  near  the  North  River  docks  at  Thir- 
teenth Street  and  the  mail  came  twice  a  day  by  stage 
from  New  York,  and  when,  as  a  boy,  he  went  out  with 


40  NEW  YORK 

his  first  gun  into  the  woods  where  the  old  Seventh  Regi- 
ment Armory  later  stood,  close  by  the  Cooper  Union  at 
the  head  of  the  Bowery,  and  shot  a  quail!  Since  then  the 
city  has  gone  roaring  northward,  mile  on  mile  of  solid 
masonry,  far  beyond  these  precincts.  It  strikes  one 
today  as  ludicrously  incredible  that  quail  could  have 
nested  at  Astor  Place  within  the  memory  of  a  living 
man.  What  a  boom  town  New  York  has  been — and  still 
is!  It  sweeps  on  perpetually,  eating  up  fields  and  coun- 
try, and  looking  perpetually  in  process,  perpetually  of 
tomorrow  rather  than  yesterday  or  even  today.  Yet  it 
has  left  its  oases  of  at  least  comparative  antiquity.  Like 
most  boom  towns,  it  has  skipped  perversely  certain 
spots  in  its  endless  process  of  tearing  down  and  building 
bigger.  In  those  spots  we  love  to  linger,  for  their  quiet, 
for  their  sense  of  other  days,  for  the  perspective  they 
afford  us  on  our  larger  and  livelier  present. 

Trinity  Parish  is  responsible  for  several  of  them,  for 
Trinity  Church  itself  at  the  head  of  Wall  Street,  and  old 
St.  Paul's  turning  its  back  on  Broadway,  and  St.  John's 
northwestward  on  Varick  Street,  in  a  neglected  and  for- 
gotten part  of  town,  where  it  maintains  a  precarious 
existence,  periodically  threatened  with  demolition,  with 
the  "Evening  Post"  and  the  "Churchman"  periodically 
rushing  to  its  rescue.  Its  beautiful  Wren  spire  rises  grace- 
fully above  its  Grecian  portico,  and  it  is  flanked  in  front 
by  two  buildings  worthy  of  it,  the  old  Trinity  Rectory 
and  the  Parish  House.  Up  and  down  the  street,  however, 
the  gracious  dwellings  are  no  more,  only  tenements  and 
warehouses,  and  the  park  is  no  more  it  used  to  face. 
From  the  rear,  you  catch  a  view  of  it  as  you  come  down 


THE  OLD  TOWN  41 

town  on  the  Elevated — a  brown  wall,  the  bare  semicircu- 
lar apse  rising  behind  the  wall,  and  the  slender  spire, 
framed  between  tenement  fire  escapes  and  variegated 
disclosures  of  domestic  wearing  apparel.  Some  day 
even  the  "Evening  Post"  will  not  avail  to  save  it,  and  a 
towering  warehouse  will  take  its  place.  But  we  shall  be 
the  poorer  without  the  glimpse  of  its  ancient  loveliness. 
A  little  farther  north,  where  the  numbered  streets 
commence — where  New  York  began  to  be  "laid  out,"  in 
other  words — is  Washington  Square.  Here  poverty  and 
aristocracy  face  each  other  across  a  green  park  and  a 
fountain,  and  a  University  jostles  a  sweat-shop  on  the 
east.  Yet  the  Square  has  its  own  unity  of  impression,  and 
nowhere  in  the  great  town,  perhaps,  is  the  spring  more 
vernal,  the  sense  of  ordered  charm  stronger,  the  feeling 
more  pronounced  that  here,  at  least,  is  a  spot  which 
has  found  itself,  which  has  been  finished  and  had  time 
to  grow  a  bit  of  ivy.  Thanks  to  the  fact  that  the  Sailors' 
Snug  Harbor,  which  owns  almost  the  entire  northern 
face  of  the  Square,  has  more  income  now  than  it  knows 
what  to  do  with,  that  incomparable  row  of  simple,  digni- 
fied, substantial  red  brick  dwellings  retains  its  unity  of 
sky  line  and  marble  porticos,  keeping  the  sense  of  or- 
dered, cheerful  domesticity  which  belongs  by  right  to  a 
homogeneous  society.  The  skyscraper  is  a  thing  of  com- 
merce. It  can  never  be  reconciled  to  a  right  system  of 
domestic  life.  Washington  Square  and  lower  Fifth  Ave- 
nue beyond  are  the  reproach  of  an  elder  and  more  beau- 
tiful way  of  living  to  our  present  generation  of  cliff- 
dwellers.  How  serenely  these  cheerful  homes,  conscious 
of  their  loveliness,  look  southward  over  the  green 


42  NEW  YORK 

Square,  and  see  the  hosts  of  children  play  and  the  foun- 
tain like  an  opal  ringed  with  the  gold  of  tulips,  and  un- 
der the  aged  elms  and  the  marble  arch  the  green  'busses 
bearing  flower  gardens  up  and  down — the  gay  hats  of 
the  passengers!  Under  that  solemn  Roman  arch  the 
Avenue  begins,  its  misty  vista  framed  by  the  marble 
blocks,  the  gay  flags  on  the  old  Hotel  Brevoort  whipping 
out  over  a  bit  of  green  foliage;  and  looking  southward 
again,  through  the  arch,  you  may  see,  as  twilight  steals 
into  the  Square  from  the  east  and  the  sunset  dies  over 
the  far  hills  of  Hoboken,  the  cross  on  the  Judson  Tower 
twinkle  into  gold,  keeping  guard  above  the  elms  and  the 
children  and  the  teeming  tenements  below,  from  the 
same  slender  watch-tower  that  dreamed  long  ago  above 
the  plains  of  Lombardy. 

Behind  the  houses  on  the  north  of  the  Square,  and 
west  of  the  Avenue,  is  a  quaint  little  court  bearing  the 
unromantic  name  of  Macdougal  Alley.  It  was  once  lined 
on  both  sides  with  stables;  one  or  two  of  them,  indeed, 
still  house  motor  cars.  But  most  of  these  stables  have 
been  converted  into  studios,  and  Macdougal  Alley  is 
now,  perhaps,  our  nearest  approach  to  a  Latin  Quarter; 
at  any  rate,  it  is  our  one  spot  where  all  the  inhabitants 
live  apart  in  a  world  of  idealistic  creation,  and  let  the 
town  flow  by  them  unrecked.  There  are  both  sculptors 
and  painters  on  the  Alley.  The  open  door  of  an  appar- 
ent stable  shows  a  glimpse  within  of  white-clad  Ital- 
ians "pointing  up"  a  model  into  marble,  or  a  sculptor 
walking  'round  and  'round  a  mould  of  clay,  or  a  head 
bent  intently  toward  an  easel,  and  the  flash  of  a  hand 
and  brush.  Here  in  the  quiet  Alley  the  artists'  children 


js  i  *  >^i^<:; 
•;  v '  QrJSaO 


VC*^l     "^^>>X"    t* 


THE  OLD  TOWN  45 

play  unmolested,  and  a  cat  walks  sedately  up  and  down. 
The  way  ends  against  a  fence.  Over  the  fence  nod  trees. 
From  either  side  the  windows  of  aristocratic  brick  houses 
look  down.  The  noise  of  the  city  is  curiously  hushed. 
It  is  an  ideal  spot  for  ideal  pursuits,  hidden  in  back  yards 
amid  the  simplicity  of  stables. 

Westward  from  Washington  Square  lies  Greenwich 
Village,  its  crooked  streets  mute  witness  to  the  days  al- 
most a  century  ago  when  it  was  hastily  settled  by  refu- 
gees from  plague-stricken  New  York.  The  crooked 
streets  of  Boston  are  attributed  to  the  ambulatory  in- 
stincts of  Mr.  Blackstone's  cows,  those  of  Greenwich  Vil- 
lage to  the  fact  that  the  original  house  lots  were  taken  up 
along  the  lanes  and  short  cuts  of  a  country  hamlet.  If 
you  enter  it  on  Fourth  Street  you  will  presently  end  up  in 
Twelfth.  If  you  enter  it  by  Eleventh  or  Twelfth  Street, 
you  will  pass  between  two  blocks  of  pleasant  red  brick 
dwellings,  with  trees  in  front — that  rarest  of  sights  in  our 
arid  city — and  here  and  there  an  ancient  church  with  a 
Doric  portico  or  a  group  of  houses  with  triple  rows  of 
balconies  across  them,  the  wrought  grillwork,  ivy  cov- 
ered, suggesting  a  southern  country.  Wealth  still  inhabits 
these  cross  streets  well  into  Greenwich,  and  even  after 
you  have  passed  under  the  Sixth  Avenue  Elevated  struc- 
ture the  low,  pleasant  dwellings  have  few  of  the  airs  of 
a  slum.  Was  our  entire  city  once  like  this?  Did  we  live 
in  separate  houses,  with  mottled  shadows  on  our  curb? 
We  pass  cheery  little  dwellings  by  a  small  park  (in  one 
of  them  Robert  Blum  lived  and  painted),  and  pass  down 
crooked  Grove  Street,  with  here  and  there  a  six  story 
tenement  breaking  the  line  of  ancient  red  brick  homes. 


46  NEW  YORK 

Presently,  between  two  of  these  dwellings,  appears  a 
narrow  opening.  We  slip  through.  Can  this  be  New 
York,  the  New  York  we  know?  We  are  in  a  tiny,  brick- 
paved  court,  surrounded  by  ramshackle,  brick  houses. 
In  the  centre  of  the  court  is  a  pump,  the  bricks  green 
with  moss  beneath  its  spout.  Lift  the  handle,  and  the 
water  gushes.  Out  of  that  doorway  a  ragged  child  is 
coming  with  a  pail.  There  is  no  hint  here  of  the  roar  of 
traffic  on  distant  Broadway.  There  is  no  sight  of  a  sky- 
scraper. We  have  slipped  back  through  that  narrow 
gap  behind  us  into  a  New  York  of  fifty  years  ago.  Only, 
we  might  add,  we  do  not  hazard  a  drink  of  the  water. 
Pasteur  has  done  his  work  since  1850! 

Northward  from  Greenwich  Village,  separated  in  the 
old  days  by  farms  and  fields,  lay  Chelsea,  both  seeking 
proximity  to  the  cool  breezes  of  the  North  River,  and 
both,  for  that  reason,  passed  by  when  the  town  marched 
up  the  centre  of  the  Island.  There  is  a  row  of  houses  on 
West  Twenty-third  Street,  the  Portland  Terrace,  which 
still  boasts  front  yards,  and  behind  it  a  block  of  West 
Twenty-fourth  Street  is  like  a  glimpse  of  some  south- 
ern town,  low,  sunny,  and  sleepily  cheerful.  But  the 
heart  of  old  Chelsea  is  the  block  bounded  by  Ninth 
and  Tenth  Avenues  and  Twenty-first  and  Twenty-sec- 
ond Streets.  The  centre  of  this  block  is  filled  by  the 
General  Theological  Seminary,  with  the  old  retaining 
wall  of  the  Hudson  still  visible  at  its  western  end.  The 
cross  streets  present  two  rows  of  well-weathered  houses, 
still  occupied  as  homes  of  comfort,  although  that  in 
which  a  professor  of  Hebrew — of  all  people! — wrote 
"The  Night  Before  Christmas"  has  been  replaced  by  a 


THE  OLD  TOWN  47 

"flat."  A  scholastic  atmosphere  still  broods  over  this 
oasis,  the  stranger  for  the  teeming  commerce  on  the 
river  and  the  teeming  tenements  to  the  east.  The  various 
buildings  of  the  Seminary  leave  no  strong  architectural 
impression,  yet  they  are  academic  and  ivy-grown,  with 
the  mellow  charm  of  age  and  association,  while  beneath 
their  walls  move  figures  in  scholastic  mortarboard  and 
gown,  to  the  call  of  a  vesper  bell. 

Doubtless  unfairly,  but  inevitably,  one  thinks  of  the 
river  commerce  and  the  teeming  desert  of  town  which 
hem  this  academic  oasis,  and  seeks  a  symbol  of  the  de- 
cay of  faith  in  the  startling  contrast.  Here  reclused  stu- 
dents pore  over  Pusey  and  the  Hebrew  prophets,  while 
tugs  toot  on  the  restless  river  and  the  Elevated  thunders. 
One  enters  the  gate,  and  leaves  the  noise  and  rattle 
behind.  A  youth  sits  at  an  open  window  of  a  dormitory, 
reading  a  book.  A  group  in  mortarboards  and  gowns 
pass  to  a  recitation.  A  sober  professor,  absorbed  with 
the  traditional  absent-mindedness  in  thought,  crosses 
from  his  house.  The  eye  rests  on  an  ancient  brick  wall 
covered  with  delicate  ivy.  Presently  there  steals  over 
the  senses  the  croon  of  an  organ.  The  last  sound  of  the 
outer  world  dies  as  you  enter  the  chapel.  The  fresh 
voices  of  the  choir,  the  drone  of  the  service,  the  bowed 
heads  of  the  young  soldiers  of  an  ancient  faith,  the  low 
light  of  afternoon  strained  through  tinted  glass,  are  all 
the  sounds  or  sights  that  reach  your  senses.  Here  the 
old  order  changeth  not.  How  restful  to  the  spirit  is  this 
solidity,  like  "the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary 
land"!  Yet  these  young  soldiers  must  go  forth  into  the 
modern  world,  into  those  teeming  tenements,  into  the 


48 


NEW  YORK 


marts  of  commerce,  to  bear  a  new  hope  for  an  ancient 
longing.  Old  Chelsea  deserves  to  keep  its  charm  of  brick 
and  ivy  only  so  long  as  it  sends  forth  soldiers  whose 
message  does  bring  hope  to  the  modern  world;  and  that 
message  will  not  come  from  weathered  stones  but  the 
hearts  of  men.  Perhaps  we  must  find  in  the  end  that 
our  oases  of  antiquity  are  not  symbols,  after  all,  but 
only  accidents  that  please  the  eye.  Yet  for  some  of  us, 
to  please  the  eye  is  no  slight  service.  So,  like  most  mus- 
ings, this  one  ends  with  a  paradox. 


V 
THE  SQUARES 


THE  SQUARES 

IN  NO  part  of  New  York,  perhaps,  is  the  need  for  a  re- 
adjustment of  the  vision  so  apparent  as  in  our  two  fa- 
mous squares,  Union  and  Madison,  strung  on  the  artery 
of  Broadway.  Viewed  from  the  water,  the  Lower  Island 
rises  at  the  end  of  a  mile,  like  a  natural  phenomenon — 
a  serried  cliff,  or  mountain  range — and  necessitates  no 
neck  craning.  Viewed  from  its  streets,  all  the  lines  go 


52  NEW  YORK 

up  as  in  a  forest.  But  viewing  the  skyscrapers  about 
Union  and  Madison  Squares,  we  are  at  once  far  enough 
removed  and  close  enough  to  sense  the  natural  habit  of 
the  eye  to  view  its  surroundings  in  horizontal  perspec- 
tive and  to  feel  the  new  tug  fighting  this  habit  and  carry- 
ing the  eye  straight  aloft.  Traditionally,  a  square  exists 
to  make  a  pleasing  ground  pattern  and  to  frame,  in  ho- 
rizontal perspective,  the  surrounding  examples  of  ar- 
chitecture. Such  a  purpose  both  Union  and  Madison 
Squares  served  until  the  last  decade.  Now,  almost  in  a 
night,  the  ground  pattern  and  horizontal  perspective  are 
battling  for  attention  against  the  new  call  of  the  upward 
sight  line.  Squares  ten  times  the  present  acreage  would 
be  required  to  frame  the  new  buildings  in  level  vista 
and  preserve  the  impression  of  ground  pattern.  So  we 
have,  in  our  squares,  yet  another  startling  contrast — a 
suggestion  at  once  of  level  country  and  shooting  towers; 
and  Fourth  Avenue,  where  once  the  old  Everett  House 
stood  at  the  head  of  Union  Square,  has  now  become  a 
mighty  canon  ending  abruptly  on  a  plain. 

You  may  like  this  or  not,  but  you  cannot  avoid  it.  For 
better  or  worse,  the  majority  of  our  streets  and  squares 
are  as  wide  as  they  can  ever  be,  and  while  it  is  conceiv- 
able that  a  twenty  story  city  with  streets  and  squares  of 
corresponding  width  would  retain  the  old  effect  of  hori- 
zontal vision  while  gaining  the  new  effect  of  massive 
height  and  size,  and  while  we  may  sigh  that  ours  ought  to 
be  that  city,  we  still  shall  have  to  make  the  most  of  what 
we  possess  and,  at  the  feet  of  our  towers,  rest  our  eyes 
on  what  green  we  may  before  the  leap.  Saint-Gaudens' 
alert  and  breeze-blown  Farragut  in  Madison  Square  is 


THE  SQUARES  53 

indubitably  less  impressive  at  the  bottom  of  a  well, 
while  the  three  hundred  foot  prow  of  the  Flatiron  Build- 
ing bears  down  upon  it,  with  half  Broadway  in  tow;  and 
the  lithe-limbed  Diana  on  her  Spanish-Moorish-Italian 
tower  now  shoots  her  shafts  into  office  windows  but  half 
way  up  the  commercialized  Campanile  close  by.  Sculp- 
ture belongs  to  the  horizontal  vision  and  the  intimacy  of 
ground  plan.  Yet  there  is  compensation.  Look  where 
that  same  great  prow  of  the  Flatiron  catches  the  sunset 
rose  upon  its  western  side,  and  over  the  haze  of  the  city 
seems  almost  to  lift  its  sharp  nose  forward!  How  grace- 
ful it  is  in  its  strength!  And  the  commercialized  Cam- 
panile, too,  is  rosy  with  the  western  radiance,  flashing 
down  the  sunset  farewell  from  its  lifted  lantern,  while 
in  the  Square  beneath  already  twilight  has  spread  a  veil 
of  blue  and  the  arc  lamps  splutter. 

We  used  to  shop  in  Union  Square,  lingering  over  the 
latest  books  or  passing  between  cases  aglitter  with  jew- 
els. Now  the  shops  have  joined  the  march  uptown,  and 
wholesale  houses  have  taken  their  places.  The  roll  of 
carriages  has  ceased.  On  the  southern  side  little  moving 
picture  theatres  advertise  their  cheap  and  insignificant 
wares  with  a  mighty  display  of  electricity,  and  on  a 
misty,  wet  night  when  the  asphalt  is  a  mirror  their 
facades  make  a  picture  no  film  within  could  rival.  To 
the  east,  the  shabby  row  of  old-time  buildings  shows  a 
face  of  sleepy  decay.  It  is  on  the  west  and  north,  espe- 
cially on  the  corner  where  Fourth  Avenue  makes  its 
exit,  that  the  modern  town  displays  itself  in  rearing 
walls,  dwarfing  the  trees  and  pansy  beds  and  massing 
blocks  of  shadow  with  perpetual  variety.  Looking  up 


54  NEW  YORK 

through  the  dusty  green  trees  into  the  canon  slit  of 
Fourth  Avenue,  you  see  the  walls  of  the  two  buildings 
which  form  the  entrance  pillars,  startlingly  white.  But 
back  into  the  gorge  the  mortared  cliffs  throw  shadows 
one  upon  the  other  in  great  patterns  of  gray  and  blue 
and  purple,  and  the  vista  finally  melts  into  a  dark,  dusty 
haze  suggestive  of  infinite  distance.  Meanwhile,  far 
above  the  roofs,  the  white  Metropolitan  Tower  to  the 
north  stands  up  and  takes  the  sun. 

Always  that  tower,  in  this  part  of  town,  crowns  the 
distance.  If  we  go  two  long  blocks  to  the  east,  into  Stuy- 
vesant  Square,  where  time-crusted  dwellings  still  stand 
about  and  the  old  Quaker  Meeting  House  quaintly  re- 
minds you  by  its  plain  red  brick  walls  of  New  England 
Andover,  and  the  stunted  spires  of  St.  George's  Church 
look  down  on  the  swarms  of  tenement  children  at  play, 
still  you  may  see  above  meeting  house  and  spires  the 
white  shaft  with  its  golden  lantern.  Come  back  now 
through  Irving  Place,  where  the  ancient,  peaceful  houses 
are  fast  giving  way  to  ugly  loft  buildings,  to  Gram- 
ercy  Park,  most  exclusive  of  all  our  squares,  since  its 
pretty  green  garden  is  fenced  about  and  only  the  sur- 
rounding householders  have  the  key.  Some  attempt  at 
real  gardening  is  possible  here.  A  few  tall  apartment 
houses  have  broken  the  sky  line,  but  many  of  the  older 
dwellings  remain,  some  with  swell  fronts  and  window 
panes  turning  a  faint  purple  in  hopeless  rivalry  with 
Beacon  Hill,  and  look  benignly  over  the  railing  into  the 
flower  beds  and  fountain.  The  flags  of  half  a  dozen 
clubs  whip  out  over  Gramercy  Park;  cabs  stand  in  front; 
liveried  servants  appear  at  the  doors.  A  group  of 


THE  SQUARES  57 

immaculate  children,  under  the  watchful  eye  of  a  nurse- 
maid, play  about  the  fountain.  Your  steps  loiter  uncon- 
sciously. This  is  not  New  York,  after  all.  This  must  be 
a  nook  of  old  London  or  a  backwater  of  aristocratic  Bos- 
ton. Then  you  lift  your  eyes,  and  nearer  now,  more  in- 
sistent, the  commercialized  Campanile  booms  up  over 
the  housetops  half  way  to  the  zenith! 

When  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel  was  erected  in  Madison 
Square,  a  few  years  before  the  Civil  War,  the  owner  was 
dubbed  a  fool  for  building  so  far  north.  Now,  fifty 
years  later,  the  hotel  has  been  torn  down  because  it  was 
too  far  south.  A  huge  office  building  has  taken  its  place. 
The  towering  Flatiron  Building  hauls  Broadway  and 
Fifth  Avenue  into  the  Square  at  one  end.  At  the  other, 
where  until  recently  a  row  of  Victorian  brown  stone 
dwellings  proclaimed  the  aristocratic  days  of  Miss  Flora 
McFlimsey,  a  broken  line  of  skyscrapers  makes  at  twi- 
light a  mighty  screen  of  blue  shadow.  On  the  east  Diana 
springs  from  her  yellow  tower  at  one  corner,  and  the 
titanic  marble  Campanile  bears  its  golden  lantern  seven 
hundred  feet  aloft  at  the  other,  taking  poor  Diana  down 
a  peg,  to  be  sure,  but  unable  quite  to  obscure  her.  Be- 
tween these  two  towers  are  yet  others  now,  narrow 
buildings,  either  on  the  Square  or  on  Fourth  Avenue 
behind,  piling  up  in  a  confusion  of  masonry  that  is, 
architecturally,  mere  upright  line  and  window,  while 
tucked  away  at  their  feet  are  the  low,  classic  piles  of  the 
Court  House  and  the  Madison  Square  Presbyterian 
Church — marble  statues  and  Delia  Robbia  pediment 
carved  at  the  foot  of  a  mountain  range. 

There  is  still  shopping  around  Madison  Square,  and 


58  NEW  YORK 

the  roll  of  carriages  and  limousines.  The  human  throng 
is  animated,  gay.  The  open  space  is  wide  enough  to 
admit  the  sun.  A  fountain  pulses  under  the  trees  and 
men  and  women  loiter  along  the  walks  or  chat  on  the 
benches.  Under  the  trees,  indeed,  their  foliage  discour- 
aging the  upward  view,  the  Square  still  has  something 
of  its  old-time  aspect.  You  look  out  upon  the  roll  of 
pleasure  traffic,  upon  the  breeze-blown  Farragut,  upon 
the  pillars  of  the  church,  upon  the  white  statues  on  the 
Court  House,  upon  the  arches  and  tower  of  the  Garden. 
But  always  behind  the  church,  above  the  throng,  you 
sense  a  wall,  and  coming  to  an  opening  you  lift  your 
eyes  to  see  the  great  Campanile  heaving  aloft,  or  the 
range  on  range  of  skyscrapers  piling  into  the  north,  or 
the  beautiful  prow  of  the  Flatiron  bearing  down  upon 
you. 

There  are  bright  winter  days,  too,  when  Madison 
Square  is  peculiarly  attractive,  just  after  a  new  fall  of 
snow  in  the  night.  Men  have  already  begun  to  heap  the 
white  snow  up  into  conical  piles  on  the  asphalt  before 
you  are  abroad.  These  piles  are  like  Eskimo  igloos, 
with  incongruous  motors  dodging  between  them.  Pres- 
ently along  comes  a  man  who  thrusts  bright  red  and 
yellow  placards  upon  the  top  of  each  pile,  advising  us  to 
attend  the  latest  musical  comedy.  A  little  sun,  and 
the  piles  melt  down  a  trifle,  so  that  the  placards  begin  to 
tilt  at  a  hundred  groggy  angles.  The  trees  in  the  park 
space  are  coated  with  snow,  the  black  under  side  of  each 
limb  and  branch  telling  sharply  beneath  its  white  jacket. 
How  beautiful  a  bare  branch  becomes  when  its  line  is 
thus  accentuated!  Is  anything  more  difficult  to  render 


THE  SQUARES  59 

with  a  pencil  or  brush  than  the  vital  spring  of  a  lateral 
branch,  maintaining  through  a  score  of  irregularities, 
even  of  sharp  angles,  the  rhythm  of  its  growth?  A  tree 
in  winter,  denuded  of  foliage,  is  stark  and  noble;  but 
when  it  is  coated  with  snow  in  the  sunlight  it  becomes 
once  more  a  thing  of  infinite  grace  and  lightness,  its 
tracery  no  less  pleasantly  contrasted  here  in  the  Square 
with  the  bounding  walls  of  the  tall  buildings,  than  its 
leafy  green  in  summer.  When  the  winter  evening  comes 
the  igloos  gleam  coldly  under  the  arc  lamps,  but  under 
the  trees  some  boys  have  made  a  black,  icy  slide  on  the 
walk,  and  are  flying  along  it  with  merry  shouts.  And 
once  in  the  year,  at  Christmas  time,  a  great  Norway 
spruce  sprouts  with  coloured  lights  and  glittering  tinsel 
beside  the  icy  fountain,  while  the  plaintive  melody  of 
ancient  carols  mingles  with  the  city's  roar. 

There  are  lowering  days  of  mist  and  rain  when  the 
Campanile  goes  up  out  of  sight  into  the  driving  vapours, 
and  you  wonder  if  the  occupants  of  those  offices  on  the 
top  stories  feel  the  chill  of  the  clouds.  There  are  misty 
evenings  when  the  sky-borne  lantern,  without  any  vis- 
ible support,  gleams  like  a  great  star  in  the  sky.  But  the 
tower,  and  the  whole  Square,  are  most  beautiful  at  the 
hour  when  the  blue  veil  of  twilight  drops  over  the  city, 
softening  outlines,  wiping  out  shadows,  obliterating  de- 
tails. Then  the  surrounding  skyscrapers  are  flats  of 
blue,  stood  on  end,  like  a  beautifully  tinted  screen  placed 
about  this  oasis  of  green  park  and  home-going  hu- 
mans. Then  the  arc  lamps  splutter  out,  the  trolley  cars 
are  golden,  the  illuminated  clock  half  way  up  the  Cam- 
panile beams  like  a  benignant  moon,  the  Flatiron  is  a 


60 


NEW  YORK 


phantom  ship,  and  only  the  white  marble  pyramid  of 
the  great  tower  far  aloft  is  tipped  with  the  warm  rose 
of  sunset,  echoing  that  last  red  banner  of  the  defeated 
day  which  may  still  be  glimpsed  down  a  side  street,  over 
the  Hoboken  heights.  At  that  twilight  hour  the  Square 
is  its  old  self,  intimate,  human,  but  new-set  amid  blue 
mountain  cliffs  and  under  a  mighty  watch-tower.  There 
is  the  little  human  plan  and  planting;  there  the  heights 
and  spaces  of  primeval  Nature  against  the  evening  sky. 
To  stand  in  Madison  Square  at  twilight  is  to  think  New 
York  one  of  the  most  beautiful  cities  in  the  world. 


VI 
FIFTH  AVENUE 


VI 
FIFTH  AVENUE 

IF  YOU  walk  up  Fifth  Avenue  from  Washington  Square 
to  Harlem  you  see  much  of  New  York  in  epitome,  both 
the  various  phases  of  its  evolution  and  the  multitudi- 
nous aspects  of  its  present.  Here  domesticity  has  made 
stand  after  stand  against  the  encroachments  of  com- 
merce— and  been  worsted;  each  battle  leaving  its  mark 
in  dwellings  converted  to  trade.  Here  church  spires 
jostle  with  skyscrapers,  here  are  the  finest  shops,  here 
the  most  nearly  incessant  roll  of  pleasure  traffic,  here 
alike  the  canon  slit  and  the  bordering  greenery  of  trees 
and  park.  The  Avenue  begins  at  the  Washington  Arch 
and  for  six  blocks  maintains,  save  for  a  skyscraper  or 
two  of  recent  construction,  the  pleasant  aspect  of  an 


64  NEW  YORK 

elder  day,  flanked  by  fine  old  houses,  an  old  hotel  gay 
with  white  paint  and  green  shutters,  two  brown  stone 
churches  with  excellent  English  Gothic  spires  as  yet  un- 
dwarfed,  and  down  orderly  side  streets  the  shade  of 
trees.  Then  Fourteenth  Street  cuts  across,  like  a  Mason 
and  Dixon  line  to  mark  commercial  slavery.  Suddenly 
Fifth  Avenue  is  the  bottom  of  a  canon.  The  sunlight  has 
disappeared  from  the  pavement,  the  red  brick  dwellings 
are  no  more.  The  canon  walls  tower  twenty  stories  on 
either  hand,  and  the  walks  swarm  at  the  noon  hour  with 
the  outpouring  of  garment  workers  from  the  lofts.  They 
are  the  commercial  slaves,  undersized,  coarse  featured, 
pathetic,  jabbering  in  many  tongues  with  Yiddish  pre- 
dominating, and  making  the  curbs  almost  impassable. 
Again  at  night  they  pour  out  and  through  the  cross  streets 
eastward  to  their  tenement  homes,  the  great  immigrant 
army  that  makes  our  underwear  and  our  disease,  while 
we  make  money.  In  spite  of  the  shadows  that  mass 
in  the  canon  depths,  this  part  of  the  walk  up  the  Ave- 
nue is  not  pleasant.  We  come  with  relief  into  Madi- 
son Square,  and  greet  the  great  white  tower  and  the 
trees. 

Beyond  the  Square  begins  a  stretch  where  the  shops 
have  triumphed  completely  over  the  aristocratic  dwell- 
ings, tearing  down  some  to  replace  them  with  tall  build- 
ings, converting  others  into  four  stories  of  show  win- 
dows where  the  pillage  of  the  world  invites  a  purchaser. 
There  is  a  charm  about  these  small  shops  made  out  of 
dwellings,  which  no  modern  department  store  can  ever 
rival,  and  there  is  a  richness  and  rareness  in  the  goods 
displayed  which  suggest  a  collection  rather  than  a  stock 


FIFTH  AVENUE  65 

in  trade,  intimate  and  inviting  you  to  browse.  Here  are 
neckties  of  a  liquid  loveliness  calling  to  the  male,  and 
mysteries  of  white  calling  to  his  mate.  Here  are  etch- 
ings by  Whistler  and  Haden  and  Cameron,  and  vases  of 
the  Ming  Dynasty  and  chairs  from  some  ancient  French 
chateau  and  screens  from  Japan,  where  silken  rivers 
run  through  forests  of  bamboo  while  on  the  pebbled 
window  floor  in  front  ivory  elephants  march  amid  aged 
pine  trees  half  a  foot  high.  Wealth  does  its  shoppings 
here,  and  wealth  rolls  by  in  its  limousines  and  even  con- 
descends to  walk  a  bit  at  the  luncheon  hour. 

The  shopping  section  is  at  its  height,  and  the  view  of 
the  Avenue  perhaps  at  its  best,  on  the  crest  of  Murray 
Hill.  Here  the  beautiful  Gorham  building,  with  its 
bronze  cornice,  is  close  by  you,  one  of  the  most  success- 
ful adaptations  yet  made  of  the  tall  steel  frame  to  a  new 
type  of  individual  beauty.  It  has  the  sheer  climb  of 
wall  yet  it  remains  a  solid,  it  carries  ornamental  sculp- 
ture (in  relief)  without  making  the  ornament  picayune, 
and  there  is  about  it  a  certain  gray,  elegant,  rich  simplic- 
ity which  few  New  York  buildings,  new  or  old,  possess. 
Look  southward  now.  The  white  walls  of  Altman's  store 
reflect  the  afternoon  sun.  The  great,  towering  red  cliff 
of  the  Waldorf-Astoria,  its  windows  like  a  myriad  swal- 
lows' nests  in  a  Georgia  river  bank,  casts  a  mass  of 
shadow  over  the  Thirty-fourth  Street  corner.  Down  the 
Avenue  hangs  a  haze,  pierced  at  intervals  by  the  sun's 
rays  shot  through  cross  streets  or  between  tall  buildings. 
The  skyscrapers,  irregularly  placed,  are  a  procession  of 
towers.  Flags  whip  out  into  the  sun,  bright  flecks  of 
crimson.  Far  off,  at  the  end  of  the  vista,  the  haze  is 


66  NEW  YORK 

brightened  by  the  open  space  of  Madison  Square,  and 
closing  the  view  the  prow  of  the  Flatiron  stands  up  and 
takes  the  sun.  Now  your  eye  drops  to  the  street  level, 
and  you  are  aware  of  the  endless  roll  of  carriages  and 
motors,  the  endless  crawl  of  pedestrians,  a  black  river 
moving  through  with  flowers  floating  on  its  surface.  At 
four  or  five  o'clock  of  a  bright  autumn  afternoon  this 
river  fills  every  inch  of  space,  and  to  watch  it  dam  up 
at  the  command  of  a  traffic  policeman,  then  break  again 
and  flow  down  Murray  Hill  into  the  southern  haze,  is 
to  feel  at  once  the  vastness  and  the  lure  and  the  loneli- 
ness of  New  York. 

Just  beyond,  between  Fortieth  and  Forty-second 
Streets,  is  the  new  Public  Library,  a  massive  design  in 
marble.  With  the  vexed  question  of  the  architectural 
success  of  this  pile  let  us  not  wrestle.  It  is  set,  of  neces- 
sity, close  to  the  Avenue,  so  that  it  must  be  viewed 
obliquely,  and  many  complain  that  the  central  portico, 
by  being  thrust  twenty  feet  forward,  cuts  the  design  in 
half.  Perhaps  half  a  design  is  better  than  none,  when  it 
speaks  in  marble  of  the  classic  days,  beside  our  modern 
thoroughfare.  The  portal  is  guarded  by  two  recumbent 
lions,  which  have  assumed  a  curious  expression  of  philo- 
sophic mirth,  not  untinged  with  irony,  at  the  human 
procession.  Stand  on  the  broad  stone  platform  behind 
them,  and  you  will  view  against  the  shop  windows  oppo- 
site an  endless  stream  of  hats  and  faces,  chauffeurs' 
heads,  lapdogs  peering  from  limousines,  perspiring  dray 
horses,  a  green  'bus,  more  hats,  more  faces,  till  the  eyes 
close  for  very  dizziness. 
Beyond  Forty-second  Street,  the  war  between  com- 


FIFTH  AVENUE  69 

merce  and  domesticity  is  still  being  waged,  with  domes- 
ticity losing  ground  all  the  way  to  the  Plaza.  Here  are 
more  churches,  here  side  streets  of  endless  brown  stone 
stoops,  here  the  Roman  Catholic  Cathedral  with  its  slen- 
der twin  spires,  here  the  richest  art  shops,  where  "old 
masters"  (some  of  them  really  are)  look  out  upon  the 
Avenue  where  he  who  runs  may  see — a  museum  vis- 
ited without  interrupting  your  drive! — and  here  what 
remains  of  "Millionaires'  Row,"  that  collection  of  French 
chateaux  and  brown  stone  palaces  which  our  wealthiest 
families  built  for  homes  but  a  generation  ago,  and  al- 
ready are  being  forced  to  abandon.  Then  the  Plaza! 

The  Plaza  comes  upon  you  with  a  jump.  It  is  the 
sudden  apex  of  the  Avenue.  To  your  left  is  the  largest 
of  all  the  chateaux,  a  dwelling  that  fills  a  block.  To  your 
right  are  two  tall  hotels.  Before  you  is  the  open  square, 
at  one  side  the  towering  white  cliff  wall  of  the  Plaza 
Hotel,  beyond  it  the  green  woodland  of  Central  Park,  and 
riding  triumphantly  down  into  its  centre  to  meet  you, 
Saint-Gaudens'  golden  bronze  of  General  Sherman.  Here 
is  one  piece  of  statuary  even  so  huge  a  skyscraper  as  the 
Plaza  Hotel  does  not  dwarf.  The  gilded  bronze  justifies 
its  colour  if  only  by  its  power  to  catch  the  sunlight  and 
focus  the  attention.  A  wrist  of  steel  holds  taut  the  bridle. 
The  horse  is  crowding  Victory  off  the  pedestal  by  his 
superb  forward  urge.  "It  was  like  General  Sherman  to 
make  a  woman  walk!"  exclaimed  the  little  old  lady  from 
the  South,  whose  acid  memories  when  she  saw  this  statue 
rose  superior  to  her  aesthetic  sense.  But  the  world  will 
soon  enough  forget  those  bitternesses,  some  saner  Park 
Commission  will  remove  the  little  trees  which  have  been 


70  NEW  YORK 

planted  in  a  ring  about  the  pedestal,  and  this  rider  of 
golden  bronze  will  forever  march  in  triumph  down  the 
Avenue,  fit  symbol  of  the  human  will  in  war,  beneath 
the  shadow  of  a  lofty  building  that  is  a  fit  symbol  of  the 
human  will  at  its  achievements  of  peace. 

Now  the  Avenue  is  bright  with  trees,  for  the  Park 
flanks  it  for  almost  three  miles  on  the  west,  and  domes- 
ticity to  the  east  at  last  holds  undisputed  sway,  dwelling 
after  dwelling  of  every  conceivable  design,  yet  all  be- 
speaking a  certain  unity  of  wealth.  Here  let  us  strike  off 
into  Central  Park,  and  view  the  Avenue  from  afar. 

You  cannot  know  Central  Park  in  a  day  nor  a  week. 
Its  splendid  area  of  eight  hundred  and  forty-three  acres, 
naturally  wild  and  rocky,  and  laid  out  according  to  Na- 
ture's contours  into  lakes  and  walks  and  lawns  and 
groves  in  the  heart  of  a  great  city,  holds  many  a  trea- 
sured nook  and  vista  which  only  patient  research  will 
disclose.  The  happy  combination  of  artlessness  in  the 
Park  with  the  formality  of  surrounding  architecture  is 
one  of  its  greatest  charms.  The  Plaza  looks  at  its  own 
reflection  in  a  forest  pool;  under  a  pine  branch  like  a 
Japanese  picture,  and  over  a  snowy  lawn,  we  see  the 
facade  of  the  Century  Theatre;  in  spring  we  look  down 
a  green  slope  to  a  lake,  and  over  the  lake  to  a  wall,  and 
beyond  the  wall  flows  the  gay  traffic  on  the  Avenue, 
while  the  golden  dome  of  the  Synagogue  is  mirrored  in 
the  water.  At  night  the  Park  is  a  dim  mystery  under 
the  moon,  and  the  great  apartment  houses  to  the  west  a 
procession  of  ghostly  liners  going  by,  their  port-hole 
lights  agleam.  From  the  Belvidere  tower  we  look  out 
over  the  Reservoir,  seeing  nothing  but  the  gold-rippled 


FIFTH  AVENUE  71 

water  and  the  distant  trees — a  lake  in  the  wilderness. 
Yet  a  few  steps  through  the  trees,  and  the  Casino  blazes 
gaily,  with  motors  purring  up  and  under  the  table  lamps 
the  shimmer  of  glass  and  china  and  the  faces  of  men 
and  women.  In  winter  the  large  lake  almost  under  the 
shadow  of  the  western  apartment  wall  is  a  gay  country 
scene,  whitened  almost  to  snow  by  the  grind  of  ten  thou- 
sand skates  and  alive  with  the  swaying,  darting,  inter- 
lacing black  swarm  of  the  skaters.  In  summer,  boats 
ply  its  surface,  the  sound  of  a  band  drifts  over  the  beds 
of  pansies  and  cannas,  and  on  the  eastern  side  of  the 
Park,  under  the  wall  of  Fifth  Avenue  at  Sixty-sixth 
Street,  a  group  of  little  old  men  silently  and  mysteri- 
ously play  croquet  beneath  the  trees,  on  turf  that  is  for- 
bidden to  the  ordinary  tread.  No  more  silently,  no  more 
mysteriously,  did  the  little  old  men  in  the  Catskills  play 
at  bowls  before  the  astonished  eyes  of  Rip  Van  Winkle. 
Who  are  they?  Whence  come  they?  Perhaps  they  are 
ghosts  of  the  old  New  York.  They  ought  to  have  multi- 
ple breeches  and  Dutch  names.  The  lions  roar  in  the  Zoo 
just  south.  The  traffic  rumbles  in  the  Avenue  almost 
above  their  bent  backs.  The  nursemaids  and  children, 
the  boys  intent  on  nameless  pursuits,  pass  by  them  on 
the  walk.  Yet  still  they  drive  their  wooden  spheres 
through  the  arches,  click,  click,  click — silent,  mysteri- 
ous, absorbed.  On  such  a  quaint,  unworldly  backwater 
of  life  does  the  great  modern  Avenue  look  down,  as  it 
marches  northward  past  the  Park,  rising  over  a  hill,  dip- 
ping into  a  hollow,  flanked  by  the  home  of  our  most 
publicly  benevolent  multi-millionaire  and  scores  of  his 
less  exploited  fellows,  and  finally  ignominiously  enter- 


72 


NEW  YORK 


ing  Harlem,  where  the  green  Park  is  left  behind,  and 
block  on  block  of  sardine  apartment  houses  succeed. 
Let  us  leave  Fifth  Avenue  in  Harlem,  to  work  out  as  best 
it  may  the  new  destiny  of  a  civilization  that  needs  must 
live  in  layers.  The  Avenue  begins  in  the  past,  and  ends 
in  the  future — which  thing  is  a  symbol. 


VII 
BROADWAY 


VII 
BROADWAY 

IF  FIFTH  AVENUE  begins  in  the  past  and  ends  in  the  fu- 
ture, Broadway  begins  in  the  strident  present  and  ends 
in  Albany.  But  we  must  preserve  the  municipal  ameni- 
ties, and  confine  ourselves  to  Manhattan  Island,  on 
which  Broadway  is  as  the  central  vein  of  a  long  leaf. 
From  the  Battery  northward  beyond  the  City  Hall,  of 
course,  Broadway  is  our  deepest  canon.  Thence  it  dips 
down  the  hill  to  the  ancient  canal  and  runs  straight  be- 
tween tall  lofts  and  wholesale  houses  to  the  gray  Gothic 
pile  of  Grace  Church,  where  it  bends  accommodatingly 


76  NEW  YORK 

to  frame  that  slender  spire  at  the  end  of  the  vista,  enters 
Union  Square,  then  Madison  Square,  and  changes  com- 
pletely its  character.  From  Madison  Square,  or  a  little 
north,  almost  to  Central  Park  now,  it  is  a  street  apart,  it 
is  the  Gay  White  Way,  the  home  of  theatres  and  frivol- 
ity, the  highroad  through  Vanity  Fair. 

"Broadway,"  indeed,  now  becomes  less  the  name  of  a 
street  than  of  a  district  and  a  peculiar  society.  The  dis- 
trict is  spreading  down  side  streets  to  left  and  right. 
Almost  daily  some  group  of  old  brown  stone  dwellings 
is  torn  down  to  make  way  for  a  theatre  or  a  restaurant 
or  an  office  building  where  soon  the  myriad  applicants 
for  theatrical  employment  will  crowd  the  elevators.  The 
new  building  will  rise  from  a  deep  excavation,  strad- 
dling black  frames  of  steel  at  first,  and  against  the  wall 
of  the  adjoining  building  will  be  pathetically  exposed  in 
cross  section  the  ghost  of  the  dwelling  displaced — the 
holes  of  ancient  fireplaces,  the  marks  of  stairs,  the 
patches  of  gay  wall  paper,  no  two  rooms  alike,  mute 
witnesses  to  an  era  of  bad  taste.  Why  has  no  Locker- 
Lampson  of  the  present  written  the  ballade  of  those 
ghostly  walls?  What  cheerful  fires  once  blazed  in  the 
chimney  holes?  What  vanished  feet  went  up  and  down 
those  stairs — hastening  to  a  bridal  or  slow  with  the 
weight  of  years?  Every  day,  from  that  chamber  with 
pink-flowered  wall  paper,  some  one  descended  to  break- 
fast. Why  should  not  the  daily  descent  to  breakfast 
have  its  ballade,  too?  The  smell  of  coffee  and  toasting 
bacon,  the  freshness  of  the  morning,  the  high  hopes  for 
another  day,  the  loved  faces  awaiting  us  below!  We  no 
longer  descend  the  stairs  to  breakfast  in  New  York.  We 


BROADWAY  77 

have  no  stairs.  We  cannot  afford  more  than  one  story. 
Who  would  find  a  ballade  in  going  into  the  next  room 
for  breakfast?  These  ghostly  cross  sections  are  records 
of  another  way  of  life,  and  stare  at  us  accusingly  as  we 
rip  the  dwellings  down. 

Broadway  itself  seems  to  change  less  rapidly,  perhaps 
because  land  is  so  costly  there.  Daly's  and  Wallack's 
Theatres,  with  their  honourable  traditions  and  poor 
acoustics,  almost  face  each  other  below  Greeley  Square. 
But  above  the  founder  of  the  "Tribune"  (guarding  now 
the  entrance  to  the  underground  tubes)  tower  two  new 
hotels,  facing  to  the  west  two  tall  department  stores,  and 
down  a  cross  street  are  caught  the  gleaming  white  col- 
umns of  the  new  Pennsylvania  Railroad  station.  The 
Doges'  palace  where  the  "Herald"  is  printed  has  been  put 
at  the  bottom  of  a  well  at  last,  for  the  department  stores 
and  hotels  on  Greeley  Square  are  balanced  by  a  great 
office  building  and  a  still  greater  department  store  be- 
yond Thirty-fourth  Street.  The  canon  has  widened;  it 
has  not  ceased. 

Here,  at  night,  the  Great  White  Way — which,  to  be  sure, 
is  golden — stretches  north  to  the  tower  of  the  Times 
Building  between  and  beneath  a  splendour  of  electric  ad- 
vertisements that  mocks  the  dark.  Electric  chariots  race 
overhead.  Great  figures  clad  in  incandescent  under- 
clothes spar  one  with  the  other,  proclaiming  the  flexibil- 
ity of  the  weave.  A  gigantic  kitten  sports  with  a  per- 
petually unwinding  ball  of  somebody's  yarn.  Brilliant 
signs  announce  farces  and  operas  and  musical  comedies, 
and  once  in  a  blue  moon  the  name  of  Shakespeare  may 
make  itself  known  in  gold.  Meanwhile  along  the  walk 


78  NEW  YORK 

passes  an  endless  throng  of  men  and  women  bent  on 
pleasure,  and  through  the  roadway  rolls  an  endless 
stream  of  cabs  and  motor  cars,  jewels  and  white  shirt 
bosoms  flashing  within. 

The  gaiety  used  to  cease  at  Long  Acre  Square — a  fine 
old  name  sacrificed  to  the  vanity  of  a  newspaper! — but 
it  no  longer  ceases  there.  Long  Acre,  converted  to  Times 
Square,  is  but  a  widening  of  the  Gay  White  Way,  with  a 
score  of  theatres  electrically  beseeching  down  the  side 
streets,  several  great  hotels  and  theatres  walling  the  open 
space,  the  tall  Times  Tower  presiding  over  the  southern 
end,  and  at  the  other,  where  a  wedge  of  masonry  comes 
down  between  Broadway  and  Seventh  Avenue,  a  veri- 
table geyser  of  electricity — bubbling  mineral  water, 
foaming  beer,  disappearing  corsets,  displayed  from  the 
roofs  like  fireworks  against  the  sky.  And  still  Broad- 
way goes  on,  with  the  crash  of  music  from  cafes  and 
the  roll  of  motors,  and  not  until  the  Park  is  almost 
reached  are  the  senses  allowed  to  rest. 

Here  is  a  giddy  stretch  of  thoroughfare,  to  be  sure,  like 
nothing  else  in  the  world!  It  is  so  entirely  given  over 
to  pleasure,  and  to  those  whose  business  it  is  to  provide 
pleasure,  that  even  by  day  the  chorus  girl  and  the  actor 
predominate  on  the  walks,  and  the  rest  of  the  world 
seems  either  about  to  eat  at  one  of  the  innumerable 
cafes  or  to  buy  tickets  at  one  of  the  innumerable  thea- 
tres. Because  it  lives  so  exclusively  its  own  life,  too, 
there  is  a  certain  solidarity  about  it,  almost  a  neighbourly 
quality.  On  nearly  every  corner  someone  meets  some- 
one else  whom  he  knows,  and  stops  to  chat.  Men  and 
women  walk  past  in  groups.  Stands  of  photographs  in 


BROADWAY  81 

front  of  the  theatres  display  faces  that  are  familiar 
and  speak  of  the  gay  evening  to  come.  Broadway,  the 
theatrical  Broadway,  never  sleeps;  its  life  goes  on  in 
perpetual  round,  a  world  apart  and  sufficient  unto  it- 
self. When  evening  draws  on,  and  the  matinee  crowds 
pour  out  of  the  theatres  and  the  Opera  House,  congesting 
the  curbs  with  gay  and  chattering  femininity,  it  may  be 
a  sunset  worthy  of  Turner  flames  down  a  cross  street 
and  pours  a  purple  radiance  over  the  Times  Tower;  but 
nobody  sees.  All  are  scurrying  for  dinner,  in  the  brief 
hush  before  the  electric  signs  flare  on  and  the  evening 
sport  begins  anew. 

Of  the  social  side  of  Broadway  a  volume  might  be 
written,  for  this  dominant  atmosphere  of  amusement 
sucks  in  the  unwary  like  a  spiritual  maelstrom.  Talent 
after  talent,  more  especially,  of  course,  dramatic  talent, 
has  come  under  its  influence  and  lacked  the  character  to 
resist.  Broadway  forgets  or  ignores  the  existence  of  the 
rest  of  the  world.  The  deep  and  humble  emotions  of 
life,  the  commonplace  experiences  of  mankind,  which 
are  the  stuff  of  the  greatest  art,  are  not  within  its  ken. 
He  who  would  write  of  them,  or  he  who  would  portray 
them  by  voice  and  gesture,  forgets  them  all  too  soon  if 
he  allows  the  hectic  gaiety  of  Broadway  completely  to 
capture  his  senses,  till  it  seems  to  him  the  heady  vintage 
wine  of  life,  making  the  rest  but  flat  and  stale.  One  has 
no  more  to  dread  from  the  vice  of  the  Gay  White  Way 
than  from  vice  anywhere  and  always.  But  from  this 
exclusive  emphasis  on  amusement  one  has  everything 
to  dread;  and  its  influence  is  writ  largest  upon  our  stage, 
which  caters  too  exclusively  to  this  Broadway  patron- 


82  NEW  YORK 

age.  Moreover,  it  must  be  remembered  by  critics  of  our 
stage  that  New  York's  floating  population  numbers  sev- 
eral hundred  thousands  each  day,  and  a  majority  of 
these  visitors  are  "here  for  a  good  time,"  as  they  would 
express  it,  when  evening  comes.  Only  the  more  frivo- 
lous theatrical  entertainments  appeal  to  them — a  psy- 
chological phenomenon  not  unobserved  in  other  capi- 
tals— and  as  their  attendance  is  so  considerable,  the 
supply  of  frivolity  is  correspondingly  augmented. 

Broadway  is  at  its  best  pictorially  on  a  stormy  winter 
evening,  when  Opera  House  and  theatres  are  in  full 
blast,  when  cones  of  snow  are  piled  near  the  curb  like 
Eskimo  huts,  when  the  sloppy  asphalt  reflects  the  light 
from  signs  and  windows,  when  the  roll  of  carriages  is 
incessant,  and  jeweled  women  with  skirts  held  high  dash 
from  their  motors  across  the  wet  walks  to  the  theatre 
entrances,  the  snowflakes  swirling  in  under  the  canopies 
to  powder  their  hair.  On  such  a  night  the  myriad  elec- 
tric signs  aloft  are  less  sharply  outlined,  and  like  King 
Arthur's  helmet,  make  "all  the  night  a  steam  of  fire." 
Above  them  the  rapidly  condensing  steam  jets  from  va- 
rious roofs  drift  like  banners  of  cloud  across  the  white 
shaft  of  the  Times  Tower,  now  hiding,  now  revealing,  a 
window  square  of  pale  blue  vacuum  light  in  the  com- 
posing-room. There  is  a  certain  misty  magnificence  about 
the  electric  illumination  and  the  towering  hotels,  defy- 
ing the  dark  and  all  the  batteries  of  the  storm.  New 
York  plays,  as  New  York  works,  on  a  colossal  scale. 

The  transition  from  the  Broadway  of  pleasure  to  the 
Broadway  of  cliff-dwelling  domesticity  is  achieved  by  a 
mile  of  automobile  warerooms  and  a  fleeting  glimpse, 


BROADWAY  83 

at  Columbus  Circle,  of  the  Park.  The  street  widens  when 
the  corner  of  the  Park  is  passed,  a  strip  of  green  run- 
ning down  the  centre  roofing  the  subway.  The  great 
apartment  houses  that  begin  in  the  Sixties  gain,  unques- 
tionably, in  dignity  and  proportion  by  this  broader  thor- 
oughfare, over  their  fellows  on  the  narrow  crossways. 
They  gain  a  second  dimension  of  breadth  to  counteract 
their  height,  and  Broadway  seems  less  a  canon  than  a 
highway  planned  on  magnificent  scale.  If  all  New 
York,  we  sigh,  could  only  have  been  erected  on  streets 
of  such  proportion;  if  it  had  only  been  planned  like 
Columbus,  Georgia! 

But  this  is  a  new  world  of  domesticity  we  have  entered 
now,  though  the  stranger  might  not  guess  it.  We  are  in 
"the  Upper  West  Side,"  amid  the  modern  cave-dwellers, 
and  though  our  way  is  flanked  by  towering  buildings 
twelve  and  fifteen  stories  high,  each  family  occupies 
less  space,  perhaps,  than  ever  before  was  considered  suf- 
ficient for  a  comfortable  home.  There  are  rows  of 
separate  houses  on  many  side  streets,  to  be  sure,  but 
they  are  rapidly  becoming  the  exception,  not  the  rule. 
Where  the  rent  of  a  house  reaches  thousands  of  dollars, 
it  must  always  be  the  exception,  not  the  rule.  These 
towering  apartments  are  but  innumerable  layers  of 
little  cave-dwellings,  and  daily  the  cave-dwellers  descend 
by  the  elevators,  and  are  shot  down  town  to  business, 
under  the  ground.  In  a  very  important  sense,  then,  life 
has  grown  more  restricted  even  while  its  outward  sym- 
bols have  piled  into  mountains  as  nowhere  else  on  earth. 
We  are  here  aware  of  a  myriad  men  in  mass,  not  of 
individuals.  Yet  even  here,  in  the  great  upper  reaches 


84 


NEW  YORK 


of  the  town  which  we  have  entered,  where  primarily 
men  have  sought  but  a  cliff  cave  to  eat  and  sleep  in,  the 
rose  of  beauty  blooms  on  the  brow  of  chaos,  and  a  little 
art,  a  little  luck,  and  a  good  deal  of  Nature,  have  con- 
trived for  the  seeing  eye  vista  after  vista  of  delight.  Let 
us  turn  west  to  Riverside  Drive  in  our  search  for  them. 


VIII 
RIVERSIDE  DRIVE 


VIII 
RIVERSIDE  DRIVE 

RIVERSIDE  DRIVE  is  an  incompleted  employment  of  a 
natural  resource.  Crowning  the  steep  east  bank  of  the 
Hudson  from  Seventy-second  Street  northward  almost 
to  the  end  of  the  Island,  it  commands  a  superb  prospect 
of  the  broad  waterway,  the  abrupt  Palisades,  and  the 
yellow  sunsets.  Yet  commerce  was  here  before  munici- 
pal conscience  awoke,  and  preempted  the  narrow  strip 
of  land  between  the  river  and  the  foot  of  the  bank,  build- 
ing docks  and  a  railroad.  The  green  park  which  plunges 
down  from  the  Drive  is  held  back  from  the  water  by 
freight  cars,  locomotives,  steel  rails.  Some  day,  perhaps, 
these  tracks  will  be  covered,  that  the  park  may  seem  in 
effect  to  extend  to  the  water's  edge;  but  this  blissful  time 


88  NEW  YORK 

is  not  yet.  Our  noble  Drive  sweeps  above  tooting  loco- 
motives and  belching  coal  smoke.  That  it  triumphs  so 
splendidly  as  it  does  is  proof  of  what  Nature  has  done 
for  Manhattan  Island. 

There  is  no  uniformity  to  the  houses  and  tall  apart- 
ments which  line  the  Drive  on  the  east,  facing  the  river 
and  the  setting  sun.  Indeed,  would  they  be  characteristic 
of  New  York  if  there  were?  They  but  carry  out  in  dwell- 
ings the  jagged  sky  line,  the  variegated  colour,  the  sense 
of  lift  and  drop,  tower  and  mass  and  tower  again,  which 
marks  the  river  view  of  the  Lower  Island.  It  was  what 
might,  without  undue  perversion  of  the  truth,  be  called 
a  false,  or,  worse,  an  unimaginative  figure  of  speech 
Henry  James  employed  to,  as  it  were,  hit  off,  or,  in  less 
expressive  but  perhaps  equally  correct  language,  de- 
scribe, the  sky  line  of  New  York — that  of  an  inverted 
broken  comb.  Our  sky  line  has  the  irregularity  of  Na- 
ture, it  is  on  so  magnificent  a  scale.  What,  in  a  lesser 
scale,  might  conceivably  be  offensive,  here  is  justified, 
as  the  mountains  are  justified  for  their  caprices. 

Indeed,  the  sky  line  of  Riverside  Drive  needs  no  justi- 
fication, even  that  of  characteristic  quality,  if  instead  of 
advancing  formally  up  the  Drive  by  cab  or  'bus  we  move 
leisurely  on  foot,  our  eyes  alert  for  the  charm  of  un- 
expected picture,  our  steps  straying  down  through  the 
park  slope  where  a  path  invites,  or  even  along  the  rail- 
road tracks  and  out  upon  the  docks.  The  trouble  with 
a  great  many  people,  even  novelists,  is  that  they  are 
unwilling  to  exert  themselves  in  search  of  the  pictur- 
esque. It  is  the  modern  fashion  to  hunt  beauty  in  a 
motor  car — and  beauty  has  fled  to  the  by-ways. 


RIVERSIDE  DRIVE  89 

So  the  by-ways  of  Riverside  Drive  are  its  greatest 
charm.  It  is  delightful  to  stroll  up  the  walk  beside  the 
rolling  procession  of  pleasure  traffic  on  a  sunny  spring 
afternoon,  sensing  on  the  one  hand  the  human  stream 
and  the  substantial  dwellings,  and  on  the  other  catching 
through  the  trees  vista  after  vista  of  the  blue  Hudson 
below,  with  lithe,  white  yachts  swinging  at  anchor  or 
the  decked-over  hulk  of  an  old-time  frigate,  still  formi- 
dable with  forty  gun-ports  to  a  broadside.  Is  anything 
more  attractive  than  the  sight  of  blue  water  through  the 
tops  of  trees,  on  a  spring  afternoon?  That  phase  of  the 
Drive,  however,  is  comparatively  conventional  and 
park-like,  even  as  the  white,  Grecian  canopy  of  the 
Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Monument  which  cuts  delicately 
against  the  sky  where  the  Drive  swings  on  a  bend — the 
superb  curve  of  a  highway  following  the  natural  con- 
tour of  the  land.  Let  us  leave  the  beaten  path  and  drop 
down  the  bank  through  the  trees,  crossing  the  railroad 
tracks  to  a  pier. 

Look  back  now  at  the  Drive.  Where  is  the  charm  of 
uniform  sky  line  to  compete  with  that  sudden  piling  up 
into  a  mortared  peak  of  the  apartment  houses  above, 
topping  the  green  park?  A  little  foot  bridge  comes 
stepping  out  of  the  green  on  stilts,  crosses  the  railroad 
track  with  almost  a  Japanese  grace,  and  drops  down  to 
the  river.  The  hats  of  the  procession  on  the  roadway 
make  a  thin  thread  of  colour  weaving  through  the  trees. 
And  into  the  picture,  with  a  belch  of  smoke  and  escape 
of  steam,  comes  suddenly  a  locomotive,  hauling  a  train. 
If  evening  is  drawing  on,  that  smoke  and  steam  cloud 
lays  a  puffy,  buoyant  belt  of  living  shadow  against  the 


90  NEW  YORK 

lower  trees,  and,  when  the  fire  box  is  opened,  the  under 
side  is  lit  with  flaming  rose.  There  are  compensations 
in  commerce,  even  on  Riverside  Drive! 

A  spot  where  the  new  architecture  has  achieved  an- 
other and  more  formal  effect  is  at  One-hundred-and- 
sixteenth  Street.  Here  the  crossway  comes  down  a 
slope  into  the  Drive,  joined  just  before  the  Drive  is 
reached  by  another  street,  the  two  flowing  in  with  much 
the  curve  of  a  river,  contracting  and  then  expanding  till 
the  sides  form  two  opposing  semicircles.  Around  these 
semicircles  are  set  two  great  apartment  houses,  or  per- 
haps many  apartment  houses  merged  into  two  great 
circling  cliffs.  Between  these  precipitous  rotundities 
the  eye  follows  up  the  roadway  and  sees  the  dome  of 
Earl  Hall  filling  the  vista;  and  this  while  the  beholder 
stands  beneath  green  trees,  with  the  calm  blue  Hudson 
to  his  left. 

Let  us  pass  Grant's  Tomb  in  silence.  Just  beyond,  at 
least,  an  Architect  who  never  fails  us  has  been  at  work. 
Here  the  river  bank  swings  in  a  trifle  to  the  east  and 
dips  toward  a  deep  hollow.  We  are  at  the  northward 
brow  of  a  height  which  commands  an  unparalleled 
prospect.  Close  by,  splitting  the  Drive  like  an  island,  is 
an  old  Colonial  mansion  painted  white,  converted  into 
an  inn  where  the  prices  are  in  direct  ratio  to  the  eleva- 
tion. A  flag  flies  on  the  green  lawn.  Then  the  eye  leaps 
out  to  meet  the  view — the  broad  blue  Hudson,  truly 
called  majestic,  lazily  melting  into  the  northern  haze, 
while  from  the  far  western  bank  nose  on  great  nose  of 
the  Palisades  pushes  out  a  purple  promontory,  growing 
fainter  and  fainter  into  the  miles  of  distance,  till  at  last 


RIVERSIDE  DRIVE  93 

they  are  lost  in  what  seems  a  waste  of  water.  Here  in 
New  York  is  that  point  which  Ruskin  insisted  on  in  a 
picture,  the  point  which  lets  the  eye  out,  the  point  which 
whispers  of  infinity.  The  teeming  town  behind  is  for- 
gotten here.  The  soul  has  gone  adventuring. 

From  this  point  the  Drive  does  not  dip,  as  the  land 
does,  to  water  level.  New  York  is  equal  to  the  task  of 
spanning  a  few  hundred  yards  of  ravine!  A  steel  bridge 
of  multiple  arches,  the  girders  frankly  undisguised, 
carries  the  Drive  across  high  in  air.  It  is  a  great  road- 
way which  crosses,  and  here  again  a  great  bridge  to  meet 
the  need  achieves  the  charm  of  its  efficiency.  If  we 
leave  the  Drive  and  seek  the  street  beneath,  we  see  the 
motors  rolling  overhead,  against  the  sky.  Under  the 
arches  we  see  framed  the  humbler  street  traffic,  a  ferry 
slip  at  the  river,  and  across  the  stream  the  upright  Pali- 
sades— a  spacious  picture  in  a  yet  more  spacious  frame 
of  steel,  on  the  magnificent  scale  of  modern  New  York. 

The  Drive  goes  on  up  the  Island  now,  repeating  or 
renewing  its  river  vistas  and  sweeping  curves.  Should 
you  find  a  boat  and  row  out  into  midstream  on  a  hot 
Saturday  afternoon  in  summer,  you  would  see  the  park 
like  a  green  embankment  at  the  foot  of  a  white  cliff 
wall  of  tenements,  and  at  the  foot  of  the  green  embank- 
ment, on  every  string-piece  and  float  by  the  water's  edge, 
hundreds  upon  hundreds  of  bathers,  looking  from  the 
boat  oddly  like  bifurcated  water  bugs.  Plop — plop — 
plop — they  dive  into  the  water  as  you  pass,  others  in- 
stantly taking  their  places  on  the  crowded  float.  All  the 
city  is  bathing,  it  seems,  at  the  foot  of  its  own  walls.  The 
dancing  waves,  the  gleaming,  bifurcated  water  bugs,  the 


94  NEW  YORK 

green  Drive  above,  and  then  the  white  cliff  of  the  apart- 
ments against  the  sky — that  is  the  summer  view  of  the 
upper  town  from  the  Hudson,  unique,  picturesque,  and 
not  without  a  certain  comic  quaintness  inherent  in  the 
human  animal  undressed. 

The  extension  of  the  Drive  also  brings  us  into  fast 
vanishing  vestiges  of  the  ancient  regime,  of  the  days 
when  there  were  country  mansions  built  of  wood  lining 
the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  and  the  business  men  who 
dwelt  in  them  took  the  morning  train  down  to  Forty- 
second  Street  where  they  transferred  to  a  Broadway 
'bus.  The  Drive  swings  high  above  some  of  these  houses 
now,  shutting  out  their  river  view  or  pocketing  them,  as 
it  were,  under  its  embankment.  Not  many  of  them, 
however,  remain,  and  perhaps  in  another  decade  none 
will  mark  the  passing  of  the  older  order,  unless  the  soci- 
eties that  bear  his  name  rally  to  preserve  the  home  of 
Audubon,  near  One-hundred-and-fifty-fifth  Street  and 
the  Riverside  Drive  extension.  This  frame  house,  built 
less  than  three-quarters  of  a  century  ago,  then  stood  on 
a  pleasant,  wooded  slope  near  the  water,  with  a  country 
landscape  behind  it  and  in  front  the  broad  Hudson  and 
the  three-hundred  foot  wall  of  the  Palisades.  Now  it  is 
pocketed  by  the  Drive  embankment,  backed  by  a  mixture 
of  classic  museums  and  tall  apartments,  "and  no  birds 
sing."  The  incongruity  of  its  already  rather  dilapidated 
wooden  walls  amid  this  great  acreage  of  stonework  is 
pathetically  wistful.  Spruced  up,  as  the  phrase  goes, 
duly  marked  with  a  conspicuous  tablet,  and  set  promi- 
nently apart,  it  might  tell  the  passing  world  that  here 
once  a  great  man  dwelt.  At  present,  however,  it  is  sadly 


RIVERSIDE  DRIVE  95 

inexpressive  to  any  but  the  chosen  few  who  know  its 
history.  The  more  fanciful  may  fashion  a  fable  out  of 
the  fact  that  one  afternoon  not  half  a  dozen  years  ago  a 
white-tailed,  or  Virginia  deer,  looking  across  from  the 
Palisades  at  a  point  almost  opposite  Audubon's  house, 
to  the  mortared  palisade  of  Manhattan,  suddenly  took  it 
into  its  silly  head  to  pay  the  town  a  visit.  It  entered  the 
water,  and  was  swimming  the  Hudson  industriously 
when  the  crew  of  a  tug  boat  spied  it,  and  with  a  hastily 
improvised  lasso  hauled  the  poor  wild  thing  from  the 
stream.  It  was  not  an  escaped  inmate  of  any  zoological 
garden,  either,  but  a  true  forest  deer. 

But  there  is  much  of  the  Island  to  the  east  which  we 
have  missed.  Let  us  retrace  our  steps  a  little,  leaving  the 
ravine  beneath  the  arches  by  this  forbidding  gravel  bank 
ahead. 

All  Harlem  was  once  such  a  wilderness  of  rocky  cliffs 
and  gravel  banks,  the  haunts  of  goats  and  concealed 
squatters'  shanties.  Now  they  are  being  blasted  and 
carted  away  or  covered  with  streets  and  houses.  But 
this  one  remains,  rising  abruptly  from  the  grim  gas 
tanks  in  a  series  of  steep,  irregular  heaps  of  sand  and 
stone.  In  the  hollows  are  nomadic  stables  built  of 
weathered  boards  roughly  thrown  together,  and  tiny 
huts  of  tin  laid  over  caves  scooped  out  of  the  bank.  The 
faces  of  boys  peer  from  these  caves,  and  disappear 
again,  like  woodchucks.  Other  boys  scramble  on  mys- 
terious and  nomadic  errands  from  mound  to  mound. 
Meantime,  to  the  north,  looking  over  this  patch  of  waste 
and  wildness  in  the  city's  heart,  are  the  whitewashed 
rears  of  a  long  row  of  tenements,  bare,  ugly,  uniform, 


96 


NEW  YORK 


like  some  forbidding  fortress.  We  might  be  storming 
the  heights  of  Port  Arthur,  over  ground  ploughed  and 
mined  by  the  ripping  shells.  If  you  were  a  boy,  you 
know  that  you  would  seize  a  stick  for  a  bayonet  and  rush 
up  the  bank  with  a  yell.  Even  as  a  man,  you  half  expect 
to  see  a  spit  of  flame  from  one  of  those  forbidding  tene- 
ment windows  and  hear  the  z-z-z-mm  of  a  bullet.  Yet 
look  backward!  Now  almost  level  with  your  eye  again, 
Riverside  Drive  is  bearing  its  procession  of  gay  pleasure 
traffic  upon  its  great  steel  arches,  and  the  Hudson  rolls 
below.  Your  shoes  are  dusty  and  full  of  tiny  pebbles, 
but  you  have  seen  another  of  those  vivid  contrasts,  those 
stimulating  surprises  of  the  picturesque,  in  which  New 
York  abounds. 


IX 

KNOWLEDGE 
AND  THE  HOUSE-TOPS 


\ ' 


L     I-T- 


IX 

KNOWLEDGE 
AND  THE  HOUSE-TOPS 

NEW  YORK  has  crowned  Morningside  Heights  with  a 
cathedral,  a  university  and  a  hospital — with  faith,  hope 
and  charity.  To  that  rocky  ledge  between  the  Harlem 
flats  and  the  Hudson,  above  Riverside  Drive  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  dusty  green  strip  of  hillside  park  on  the 
other,  apartment  houses  have  climbed  and  gained  a 


100  NEW  YORK 

foothold,  also.  Cathedral  and  university  jostle  with 
domesticity  quite  as  in  the  Middle  Ages — and,  as  then, 
rise  above  it  and  stamp  this  eminence  of  the  town  as 
their  own.  We  are  in  cloistered  and  academic  Manhat- 
tan, without  the  peace  and  age  of  the  Seminary  in  old 
Chelsea,  to  be  sure,  a  subway  station  on  the  one  hand 
instead  and  a  block  of  brand-new  apartment  houses  on 
the  other,  and  modern  buildings  naked  of  ivy,  flush  to 
the  walk;  but  none  the  less  bespeaking  an  architectural 
plan,  and  learning,  and  faith,  and  things  less  temporal 
than  pleasure  or  commerce. 

On  the  southern  end  of  Morningside  Heights  rises  so 
much  as  is  completed — the  apsidal  chapels,  the  choir  and 
dome — of  the  Cathedral  of  St.  John  the  Divine.  A  cor- 
ner of  Central  Park  is  close  by,  and  the  apse,  from 
below,  seems  to  spring  directly  out  of  the  green  wall  of 
Morningside  Park.  Backed  up,  then,  to  the  edge  of  a 
cliff,  the  Cathedral  already  dominates  unchallenged  the 
western  sky  line,  and  looks  eastward  over  a  sea  of  sil- 
very roofs,  mile  after  mile,  while  the  discontented  coun- 
tenance of  John  Ruskin  in  the  spirit  land  is  crossed  for 
a  moment  by  a  smile  of  satisfaction.  The  Cathedral, 
however,  is  not  a  high  building  as  buildings  go  in  New 
York.  Even  when  its  spires  are  erected,  the  Woolworth 
Building,  or  the  Singer  Tower,  will  far  out-top  them. 
Yet  while  we  are  accustomed  to  tremendous  external 
height,  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  interior  spaciousness 
in  New  York  is  so  rare  as  to  be  a  curiosity,  and  the 
beautiful  waiting-room  of  the  Pennsylvania  Terminal 
will  be  ever  more  precious  as  the  years  pass.  The  great 
dining-room  of  the  Harvard  Club  is  a  constant  source  of 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  THE  HOUSE-TOPS       101 

astonishment,  too,  and  it  is  perhaps  only  too  typical  of 
New  York  that  nine  times  out  of  ten  the  visitor  remarks, 
"Three  stories  high!  Think  of  all  the  rent  you  sacri- 
fice!" The  interior  of  the  Cathedral,  of  course,  even  in  its 
incompleteness,  brings  with  a  hushed  surprise  the  sense 
of  vastness  and  aspiration.  Inefficient  Gothic  though  it 
be,  even  the  monumental  apsidal  columns  cannot  crush 
the  soaring  lines  of  this  interior,  nor  cause  mere  heavi- 
ness and  magnificence  to  seem,  as  is  so  often  the  case  with 
us,  to  ape  the  task  of  spaciousness.  Without,  the  Cathe- 
dral commands  the  cliffs  and  is  set  as  a  watch-tower  of 
aspiration  over  the  silvery  sea  of  roofs.  Within,  as  well, 
it  brings  to  the  spirit  the  mood  of  upward  vision  and  the 
religious  awe  which  lurk  in  organ  roll  and  sky-borne 
shadows.  Fit  spiritual  companion  to  it,  old  St.  Luke's 
Hospital  stands  almost  beneath  its  northern  walls. 

Columbia  University  is  a  true  New  Yorker;  it  has 
changed  its  residence  many  times.  Now,  at  last,  on 
Morningside  Heights,  it  seems  to  have  settled  down  per- 
manently. Alas,  that  when  it  settled  here  on  the  heights 
it  could  not  have  preempted  more  of  the  land,  extending 
its  bounds  to  Riverside  Park  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the 
brow  of  the  rocky  cliff  on  the  other!  The  Cathedral  has 
by  so  far  the  advantage  of  it.  Morningside  Park  is  not 
much  of  a  park,  only  a  wisp  or  two  of  dusty  foliage 
straggling  up  the  steep  rocks,  with  paths  and  steps  to  aid 
the  pedestrian,  and  lamps  twinkling  against  the  cliff  at 
night  to  guide  him.  But  it  would  have  served  as  a  splen- 
did setting  for  the  eastern  building  wall  of  Columbia 
University,  which  might  conceivably  have  crowned  the 
ridge  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile  with  architecture  nobly  be- 


102  NEW  YORK 

speaking  its  academic  purpose.    What  a  splendid  thing 
that  would  have  been!    Now  the  university  is  almost 
hidden  from  the  east  by  a  skirmish  line  of  apartments 
which  have  pushed  up  the  heights  and  gained  foothold 
along  the  top.    Perhaps  it  is  vain  to  speculate  now.    Like 
most  American  universities,  Columbia  did  not  anticipate 
its  growth.    As  in  all  American  universities,  too,  there 
are  startling  contrasts  in  its  architecture;  but  the  domi- 
nant impression  when  you  draw  close  is  one  of  plan  and 
grouping,  with  the  simple  solidity  of  its  great  central  li- 
brary as  the  key-note  and  a  clean-cut  efficiency  and  neat- 
ness everywhere.    There  has  been  here  neither  time  nor 
space  for  broad,  elm-hung  campuses.    This  university  is 
set  amid  a  crowded  modern  city,  and  is  the  product  of 
the  hour.    Yet  the  broad  stone  steps  of  the  library,  with 
their  twin  fountains  and  gold  statue  of  Alma  Mater,  with 
their  bordering  hedges  and  groups  of  trees,  the  dome  of 
the  college  chapel  rising  beyond,  have  a  certain  classic 
brightness,  spaciousness  and  charm  that  make  the  scene 
both  alluring  and  suggestive — suggestive  of  style,  of  high 
thinking,  of  academic  seclusion  even  here  in  sight  and 
sound  of  the  roaring  town.    There  is  no  inherent  reason, 
of  course,  why  ivy  should  suggest  the  study  of  Greek  or 
differential  calculus,  or  why  elm  trees  should  bring  to 
mind  comparative  literature  and  analytic  chemistry. 
Our  universities,  merely,  have  been  long  established, 
most  frequently  in  smaller  cities  or  towns  where  space 
and  soil  were  to  be  had.   The  seats  of  learning  that  are  to 
establish  themselves  in  New  York  must  work  out  other 
symbols,  architectural  rather  than  horticultural.    The 
Columbia  library  and  steps  are  an  excellent  beginning. 


"""!_         "-  ,„.,!        '"."fl'lVt1'1"1.'','.'!!'''1       "ll'l*'' '',',$' 

„„ ;/, !'.:.'-;;  „;  -•  1v",v.M"',v,  •";;;;'.'..-:; 

""....  mi*'11'..  *  ill'1*        .  i  ftttt**      . .  kitH"        .     i»**..     1 1' ' '    .  ..•»'* 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  THE  HOUSE-TOPS       105 

Within  the  university  enclosure  the  town  is  not  ap- 
parent. Between  the  close-set,  solid,  efficient  buildings 
is  the  stir  and  hum  of  student  life.  Behind  is  a  green 
park;  and  in  a  corner  of  that  park,  separated  from 
Amsterdam  Avenue  and  the  trolleys  and  apartment 
houses  only  by  a  fringe  of  rusty  evergreens  and  an  iron 
fence,  lies  the  lazy,  bronze  figure  of  the  great  god  Pan, 
playing  his  pipes  above  a  lily  pool.  There  is  something 
delightfully  incongruous  about  this  naked,  peak-eyed 
pagan  turning  his  back  upon  the  town  and  piping  to  the 
dusty  park.  What  has  he  to  do  either  with  the  modern 
town  or  with  those  thousands  of  students  passing 
through  the  walks,  with  books  of  science  beneath  their 
arms?  "Great  Pan  is  dead."  A  glorified  test  tube,  or  at 
most  an  inoculated  guinea  pig  of  heroic  size,  should  be 
set  here  as  a  monument.  But  the  eyes  of  Pan  leer  enig- 
matically, and  he  keeps  his  lips  upon  the  pipes.  Sensi- 
tive to  sounds  and  sights,  inquisitive,  eager,  poetic,  wild 
— that  was  the  heart  of  Pan.  So,  after  all,  is  he  the  fit- 
ting symbol  here — for  that  is  the  heart  of  youth,  which 
dares  to  fly  from  the  bondage  of  the  commonplace  and 
conventional,  which  dares  to  dream  and  be  deceived, 
which  still  stands  free  from  the  "shades  of  the  prison 
house."  Play  on,  Pan,  beneath  your  dusty  trees  above 
the  city  roofs,  the  song  of  the  untamed  spirit,  for,  as  a 
grave  professor  who  walks  daily  before  you  has  taught, 
Truth  is  forever  in  the  making,  perpetually  renewed, 
and  only  the  untamed  spirit  shall  follow  her  beckoning 
feet! 

Columbia  University  has  fostered  or  attracted  other 
institutions  of  learning  about  it  on  Morningside  Heights 


106  NEW  YORK 

— Barnard  College  for  women,  across  Broadway,  on  the 
battle  ground  of  Harlem  Heights;  the  Teachers  College 
and  the  Horace  Mann  School;  the  Union  Theological 
Seminary,  now  moved  here  from  Park  Avenue  and  in- 
stalled in  a  rectangle  of  scholastic  Gothic  so  uncompro- 
misingly different,  flush  to  the  modern  streets  and  de- 
void of  ivy,  that  the  eye  cannot  yet  accept  it  into  the 
scheme  of  things;  and,  latest  of  additions  to  the  scho- 
lastic circle,  the  modest  building  of  the  Institute  of  Mu- 
sical Art.  Standing  beside  the  Union  Seminary  chapel, 
a  little  south  of  the  music  school,  the  narrow  street 
ahead  appears  to  run  into  a  fragment  of  the  primitive 
ledge,  bending  to  the  right  and  dipping  down  the  hill. 
Behind  the  ledge  rise  the  white  walls  of  several  distant 
apartments,  grouping  into  a  sharp  peak.  The  dip  of  the 
road  is  abrupt.  It  plunges  at  once  into  the  tenement  city 
beyond.  A  few  steps,  and  the  scholastic  atmosphere  has 
gone.  We  are  again  amid  the  mountains  of  the  cave 
men. 

But  once  more  before  we  leave  the  Island  does  know- 
ledge triumph  over  the  house-tops.  New  York  City  has 
its  own  municipal  college,  and  that  college  it  has  builded 
upon  a  rock,  a  ledge  which  rises  abruptly  like  Morning- 
side  Heights  from  the  silvery  sea  of  roofs,  with  a  green 
park  clinging  to  it,  and  is  crowned  by  the  towers  of  the 
college  as  the  other  ledge  is  crowned  by  the  Cathedral. 
The  group  of  buildings  which  now  house  the  College  of 
the  City  of  New  York,  like  those  housing  the  Union 
Theological  Seminary,  are  rawly  new.  They,  also,  are  a 
kind  of  scholastic  Gothic,  wrought  of  blocked,  brown 
field-stone  with  glaring  white  trimmings  which  peril- 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  THE  HOUSE-TOPS       107 

ously  suggest  a  wedding  cake.  On  three  sides  they  form 
a  rectangle,  after  the  approved  academic  manner.  But, 
on  the  east,  where  the  cliff  bends  in  a  semicircle,  they 
too  follow  the  curve  along  the  brow,  forming  here  a 
great  sweeping  wall  of  masonry  as  superbly  placed  as 
any  castle  on  the  Rhine,  and  dominated  by  the  lofty  cen- 
tral tower.  From  far  in  the  east  this  embattled  wall  and 
tower  fill  the  vista  of  long  cross  streets  between  innu- 
merable tenements.  Distance  obliterates  the  raw  mo- 
dernity. The  college  is  an  architectural  beacon  set  upon 
a  hill;  nor  are  its  portals  closed  to  the  poorest  of  these 
boys  who  play  in  the  gutters.  It  looks  down  the  long 
canons  of  the  town,  and  over  the  shimmering  house-tops, 
and  says,  "I,  Knowledge,  am  still  here,  at  the  end  of  the 
climb!"  It  was  a  splendid  thing  for  a  municipal  govern- 
ment so  imaginatively  to  place  its  college,  to  dedicate  to 
Learning  one  of  its  most  magnificent  building  sites.  One 
wonders  how  the  miracle  happened  in  New  York! 

Now  again  we  take  up  our  northward  march  along  the 
ridge  of  the  Island  amid  the  myriad  cave-dwellings  and 
the  oppressive  sense  of  a  swarming  humanity,  while 
only  here  and  there  is  a  bit  of  green  to  shade  the  walks, 
or  in  some  square  beneath  the  shadows  of  tall  apart- 
ments a  classic  building  or  group  of  buildings  devoted 
to  charity  or  the  quiet  researches  of  the  scholar — the 
Hispanic  Museum,  the  Numismatic  Museum,  and  the 
home  of  the  American  Geographic  Society,  for  example, 
with  their  treasured  Velasquez  and  early  editions  of  Don 
Quixote,  and  Roman  coins,  tempting  the  feet  of  the 
passer  into  hushed  interiors,  where  they  gather  in  the 
little  Park  that  keeps  green  the  name  of  the  great  Audu- 


108 


NEW  YORK 


bon.  But  the  charm  of  Manhattan,  its  picturesque  sur- 
prises, its  superb  conquests  of  height  and  space,  have  not 
ceased  yet.  Wandering  eastward,  there  is  an  old,  white 
Colonial  mansion  before  us  on  the  brow  of  a  hill,  with 
the  Harlem  River  suddenly  sweeping  into  sight  far  be- 
low. Thither  our  footsteps  turn. 


X 

THE  END  OF  THE  ISLAND 


X 

THE  END  OF  THE  ISLAND 

THE  Jumel  Mansion  crowns  the  bluff  above  the  Harlem 
River  at  One-hundred-and-sixty-first  Street.  It  is  an 
excellent  Colonial  country  house,  dating  back  to  1758, 
when  first-growth  timber  was  to  be  had,  the  kind  which 
lasts.  From  its  doorway  beneath  the  ancient  fan-light, 
where  now  a  portly  policeman  looks  down  into  the  base- 
ball stadium,  once  Washington  gazed,  and  Lafayette, 
and  Jefferson,  and  Talleyrand,  and  Louis  Napoleon,  and 


112  NEW  YORK 

Aaron  Burr,  upon  the  deep,  wild  gorge  of  the  Harlem 
and  the  winding  ribbon  of  the  Kingsbridge  Road. 
About  the  dwelling  (now  converted  into  a  museum  and 
so  saved  from  destruction)  are  immemorial  lilacs,  and 
behind  it  an  old-fashioned  garden  where  dusty  holly- 
hocks struggle  up  and  iris  blades  screen  a  tiny  pool. 
The  peace  of  this  little  garden  is  worth  the  savouring;  it 
tells  us  more  eloquently  than  any  exhibit  of  colonial 
relics  within  the  mansion  what  the  New  York  of  today 
has  been  obliged  to  sacrifice.  And  it  is  a  quaint  and 
pretty  starting  point  for  the  final  stage  of  our  journey. 

To  the  right,  down  a  sharp,  wooded  embankment,  lie 
the  Speedway,  the  tide-water  river,  the  railroad  tracks 
beyond,  and  then  the  steep  opposite  bank.  The  earth 
has  begun  to  show  green.  The  packed  town  is  behind 
us.  In  front  the  Roman  arches  of  High  Bridge  walk 
across  the  gorge.  We  are  treading  a  rough  dirt  way 
now,  amid  a  tangle  of  old  trees.  Presently  we  come  to 
the  end  of  High  Bridge,  with  its  slender  tower  rising 
above  the  foliage,  and  walk  out  over  the  ravine,  seeing 
the  river  vanish  to  the  southeast  into  the  wilderness  of 
docks  and  tracks  and  bridges  and  warehouses  and  misty 
roof-tops,  and  seeing  it  sweep  in  the  other  direction  up 
the  gorge  beside  the  white  Speedway  and  under  the 
great  spans  of  the  Washington  Bridge.  The  wild  park 
continues  along  the  steep  western  bank  till  the  Washing- 
ton Bridge  is  reached.  Here  we  slip  down  a  path  to  find 
one  of  the  most  delightful  pictorial  surprises  of  the 
town.  In  front  of  us  the  bridge  leaves  the  bank  by  three 
great  stone  arches  before  the  first  steel  span  makes  its 
leap.  Above  these  arches  roll  trolley  cars  and  motors 


THE  END  OF  THE  ISLAND  113 

and  carriages  and  drays,  with  a  ceaseless  procession  of 
pedestrians  beside  the  rail.  The  great  structure  is  doing 
its  appointed  work.  But  the  first  massive  arch  which 
makes  the  work  possible  frames  over  its  foreground  of 
park  a  perfect  vista  of  the  winding  river  below  and  the 
high  opposite  bank  up  stream,  green  with  aged  trees  and 
crowned  with  the  classic  dome  of  the  New  York  Uni- 
versity Library  and  a  hint  through  the  foliage  of  the 
columnar  Hall  of  Fame — a  serene  and  pretty  picture 
superbly  set  in  utilitarian  masonry. 

From  the  Washington  Bridge  onward  the  park  is  less 
apparent,  and  presently  we  come  upon  one  of  those 
quaint  survivals  of  squatter  sovereignty  that  are  the 
more  picturesque  the  more  closely  they  are  hemmed 
about  by  the  town.  Here,  to  the  west,  is  a  solid  wall  of 
apartment  houses.  There  is  a  terrace  behind  them  per- 
haps two  hundred  feet  across  before  the  bank  plunges 
through  the  oak  trees  to  the  river.  On  this  terrace,  and 
on  every  smaller  terrace  down  the  steep  bank  where  a 
clearing  is  possible,  are  tiny  gardens — Italian  informal 
gardens  we  might  call  them,  for  our  squatters  of  today 
are  no  longer  Celtic  but  Latin.  These  gardens  are  tri- 
umphs, too,  of  agricultural  skill,  since  they  are  built  on 
a  rocky  dump  heap,  with  soil  patiently  carted  from  we 
know  not  where,  nor  would  it,  perhaps,  be  wisdom  to 
inquire!  Each  garden  is  fenced  with  bits  of  broken 
board  and  dead  twigs,  tied  together  into  palings,  and  as 
each  is  utterly  formless,  a  group  of  them  exactly  re- 
sembles a  jig-saw  picture  put  together  on  the  ground. 
Lettuce,  cabbages,  celery,  corn,  sprout  bravely  in  these 
tiny  gardens,  and  in  one  of  them  some  more  ambitious 


114  NEW  YORK 

and  aesthetic  Italian  has  sought  to  achieve  formality  and 
flowers.  In  the  centre  of  his  twenty  foot  enclosure,  so 
far  as  a  centre  can  be  determined,  he  has  erected  a  min- 
iature summer  house  roofed  with  sheets  of  rusty  tin 
and  crowned  on  the  peak  with  a  geranium  growing  gaily 
in  a  tomato  can.  Vines  climb  up  the  four  pillars  of  this 
architectural  triumph,  and  from  either  end  emerges  a 
tiny  path  bordered  with  flowers — several  precious  feet 
sacrificed  to  beauty  where  food  stuff  might  be  growing! 
Down  the  steep  bank  not  only  gardens  find  foothold,  but 
a  dozen  tumbledown  gray  shanties,  where  black-eyed 
Italian  children  swarm  and  on  the  Sabbath,  upon  ter- 
races packed  hard  and  smooth,  the  men  play  an  odd 
game  of  bowls.  But  over  every  cabin  clamber  vines, 
geraniums  bloom  in  the  windows,  and  the  surrounding 
rows  of  lettuce  and  the  towering  oaks  below  add  their 
touch  to  make  these  squatter  shanties  exotic  and  pictur- 
esque, the  more  as  the  apartment  houses  close  by  above 
the  bank  loom  ever  like  a  battlement  against  the  west, 
to  remind  us  of  the  mortared  town. 

A  few  steps  farther,  and  we  reach  Fort  George.  This 
great  nose  of  the  bluff  once  held  the  cannon  which 
guarded  the  Harlem  River  ravine.  Now  it  holds  that 
chaotic  and  curious  collection  of  roller  coasters  and 
Ferris  wheels  and  donkey  tracks  and  shooting  galleries 
and  peanut  stands  and  sausage  shops  and  laughing, 
jostling  people,  which  denotes  the  American  idea  of 
cheap  amusement.  Fort  George  is  exactly  like  Coney 
Island,  without  the  ocean.  It  is  exactly  like  a  hundred 
"amusement  parks"  near  Boston  and  Washington  and 
Chicago  and  other  American  cities.  It  is  as  hot,  noisy, 


THE  END  OF  THE  ISLAND  117 

vulgar,  crowded,  as  those  Oriental  bazaars  we  journey 
afar  to  see — and  just  as  picturesque.  Those  perpetually 
revolving  Ferris  wheels  against  the  sky,  those  spider 
webs  of  beams  and  braces  which  bear  the  roller  coasters 
on  their  perilous  voyages,  that  great  curve  of  the  street 
which  is  startling  with  a  thousand  colours  from  the  thou- 
sand gay  and  flashy  little  shops  and  booths,  or  at  night 
a  blaze  of  incandescent  illumination,  combine  into  such 
quaintness  and  animation  as,  in  a  foreign  country, 
would  inspire  our  magazine  editors  to  send  artists  and 
descriptive  writers  post-haste  to  the  scene.  Nor  is  the 
classic  touch  absent,  even  here.  Peeping  through  the 
spokes  of  a  Ferris  wheel  or  looking  over  the  sloppy 
tables  in  a  cheap  beer  garden,  we  see  the  calm  river  far 
below,  then  the  distant  green  bank,  and  rising  above  it 
through  the  trees  the  University  Library  dome  and  the 
columns  of  the  Hall  of  Fame.  The  academic  serenity  of 
that  landscape  is  in  strange  contrast  to  its  frame,  in 
ironic  contrast,  perhaps;  but  the  sense  of  humour  which 
relishes  a  little  irony  finds  it  but  fairer  so.  Fort  George 
is,  after  all,  an  honest  expression  of  one  phase  of  our  city 
life,  and,  like  all  things  honest,  it  would  have  its  peculiar 
charm  and  flavour  were  it  far  less  colourful  than  it  is. 

Beyond  the  Fort  George  ravine  the  Harlem  River 
swings  rapidly  toward  the  Hudson,  and  the  Island  nar- 
rows to  its  end.  The  spinal  ridge  along  the  western  side, 
viewed  across  a  little  valley,  is  capped  by  trees  and  large 
estates,  the  widely  separated  houses  looking  odd  after 
the  miles  of  crowded  apartments  to  the  south.  In  a  green 
park  down  by  the  Hudson  the  old  earth  ramparts  of  Fort 
Washington  are  still  visible,  and  the  rocks  go  down  into 


118  NEW  YORK 

the  water.  Here,  indeed,  the  ramparts  so  screen  the  river 
bank  from  the  road  that  once  you  have  topped  that  green 
redoubt  the  city  is  put  curiously  behind  you.  Your  feet 
are  treading  on  slippery  and  unaccustomed  shelves  of 
rock  instead  of  pavement.  There  is  the  smell  of  water, 
and  the  sound  of  it,  too,  as  the  waves  lap  in.  On  a 
boulder  overhanging  the  stream  sits  an  aged  fisher- 
man, his  bent  back  presenting  to  you  the  picture  of  a 
letter  X,  for  the  sun  is  warm  and  he  has  taken  off  his 
coat.  He  has  no  pole,  only  a  line  which  he  has  flung 
far  out  and  solemnly  twitches  from  time  to  time,  while 
a  meditative  puff  of  tobacco  smoke  rises  from  his  lips. 
Perhaps  it  is  a  copy  of  Izaak  Walton  which  bulges  his 
pocket.  Then,  again,  perhaps  it  is  n't!  Let  us  not  too 
closely  inquire,  but  continue  on  our  way.  The  final 
nose  of  the  Island  is  a  wooded  dome,  where  a  few  old- 
time  wooden  dwellings  nestle  in  the  trees  and  "Beware 
of  the  dog!"  intimidates  the  trespasser.  Some  of  the 
great  tulip  trees  here  must  have  been  sturdy  saplings 
when  Washington's  army  fled  into  Westchester.  The 
relentless  march  of  town,  the  tide  of  commerce  setting 
north  and  forever  pushing  the  homes  of  its  human 
agents  farther  and  farther  away,  will  some  day  wipe  off 
these  ancient  houses,  these  tulip  trees,  this  quiet  piece 
of  woods,  and  the  last  of  the  old  regime  will  vanish  from 
Manhattan  Island. 

But  that  time  is  not  yet.  Manhattan  still  begins  with 
a  forest  of  skyscrapers  and  ends  with  a  forest  of  trees. 
In  the  larger  sense,  of  course,  Man  is  but  a  part  of  Na- 
ture, and  our  forest  of  skyscrapers  so  considered  would 
seem  but  a  natural  phenomenon,  even  if  it  did  not,  by 


THE  END  OF  THE  ISLAND  119 

its  spontaneous  irregularity  of  growth,  resemble  even 
to  the  outward  eye  a  mortared  mountain  range.  But 
Nature  in  the  narrower  sense  is  something  dear  to  Man 
as  a  thing  apart,  serene,  to  soothe  and  comfort.  Once  he 
dwelt  close  to  it,  even  on  Manhattan  Island.  Now  he  has 
but  a  wild  corner  or  two  of  Central  Park  and  these  old 
houses  on  the  northward  nose  of  the  Island,  amid  their 
groves  of  tulip  trees  and  oaks,  to  remind  him  of  those 
simple  days.  It  is,  indeed,  a  pity  that  houses  and  groves 
must  go,  that  the  great  white  wall  of  apartments  which 
lines  the  river  front  below  must  some  day  be  extended 
till  the  Harlem  breaks  it — and  who  shall  say  how  far 
up  the  mainland  beyond?  No  bird  sings  in  the  canon 
slit  of  Wall  Street.  Here,  at  twilight,  while  the  pink 
sky  of  evening  broods  over  the  solemn  Palisades  and 
tints  the  bosom  of  the  Hudson,  the  vesper  sparrow 
pours  his  melody.  We  turn  back  to  the  subway  when 
our  walk  is  done,  we  are  shot  down  town  into  the  canon 
slits — and  we  are  a  little  wistful.  "Stone  walls  do  not  a 
prison  make?"  That  was  not  the  burden  of  the  spar- 
row's vesper  song I 

Yet,  without  this  wistful  call  of  glade  and  green  things 
at  the  edge  of  town  it  may  be  we  should  fatten  stupidly 
on  our  own  content,  and  perish  of  our  pride  in  this  new 
beauty  we  have  created  out  of  steel  and  stone,  this 
beauty  of  chaotic  vastness,  of  stupendous  efficiency,  of 
magnificent  materialism.  New  York  is  a  new  city,  a  city 
dedicated  primarily  to  commerce  and  adapted  to  handle 
commerce  on  a  new  and  undreamed  scale.  It  has  the 
beauty  of  an  engine  perfectly  built  to  perform  its  ap- 
pointed task,  and  it  has  further,  by  its  colossal  height 


120 


NEW  YORK 


and  bulk,  the  primitive  beauty  of  the  mountain  crags 
and  gorges.  It  has  the  charm  of  surprises  and  the  pic- 
turesqueness  of  variety  and  contrast;  and  it  was  built  by 
the  pigmy  Man,  who  is  proud  of  it.  But  out  of  the  north- 
ern hills  flows  the  calm  blue  Hudson  to  wash  the  wooded 
rocks  at  the  end  of  the  Island,  to  whisper  of  the  silent 
places  and  of  far  adventuring.  The  Bowling  Green  and 
Spuyten  Duyvil,  the  modern  mart  and  the  ancient  forest, 
the  two  extremities  of  our  Island,  thus  hold  in  epitome, 
perhaps,  the  dual  heart  of  Man. 


The  Committee  on  Publications  of  The  Grolier  Club 
certifies  that  of  this  book  two  hundred  and  fifty 
copies  were  printed  from  type  and  original  wood 
blocks  on  French  hand-made  paper,  and  three  cop- 
ies with  progressive  proofs  on  Japanese  uellum. 
The  ten  full-page  illustrations  were  printed  by 
Emile  Fequet,  Paris. 


